Catherine Hardwicke
Catherine Hardwicke
Catherine HardwickeOctober 21, 1955) is an American film director, production designer and screenwriter. Her works include the Academy Award-nominated independent film Thirteen, which she co-wrote with Nikki Reed, the film's co-star, the Biblically-themed The Nativity Story, the vampire film Twilight, the werewolf film Red Riding Hood, and the classic skateboarding film Lords of Dogtown. The opening weekend of Twilight was the biggest opening ever for a female director...
NationalityAmerican
ProfessionDirector
Date of Birth21 October 1955
CityCameron, TX
CountryUnited States of America
I directed the first "Twilight" movie. It was in my contract that I could have gone on to do the other films, but I didn't feel as connected to the other books.
Now there are three guys who directed "Twilight" films that had a gross of a gazillion dollars. All those "Hunger Games" guys, the "Divergent" guys. All those people. When they are looking for the next big director, they see they have a track record. So there's 20 people that spun off of "Twilight" that have more qualifications than any woman.
Even after I had just done Twilight, which made $400 million at the worldwide box office, I could not get financing for three or four projects that I really loved and I thought people would love because they didn't fit some studio or investor's model of thinking, "This will definitely make money." It's a business and a film does potentially cost millions of dollars, and they have to think that they're going to get their money back somehow.
For Twilight, I wasn't thinking it was going to be a crazy success, or anything. It had been rejected by all the major studios. Nobody wanted to make it and they didn't think it would make any money, but I read the book and I thought, "Wow, I want to capture that feeling of just being crazy in love. I wonder if I can do that in a film." That was my challenge.
I think it's true that the more sanitized a person is, you can't really relate to that person.
Some of the best stuff in all my movies has been improv.
As a director, when you cut scenes from a movie, you do it with the idea that it is making the story move forward and progress. Sometimes, you don't realize that something is actually a sidetrack for the story, or it takes the tension out of a scene.
It's interesting for me to do the commentary with the actors because, as a director, you're so in your own world that you see it from your perspective, your issues and what you were trying to do, and then it's really very fun to hear their perspective on how it was to do a particular scene or how they felt, and sometimes, I didn't even know that, at the time.
I like doing commentary. As a filmmaker and film student, I think it's really interesting to hear what a director did and how they figured out how to do things. I often like the technical commentaries myself.
If a scene doesn't work on three levels - it's not advancing the story, the characters, and telling me something new - then put it in the trash.
As a director, you try to do things that are going to touch the human experience somehow, and emotions that mean something to people. You search for those projects and you hope to realize the potential in a project.
When you're in the editing process, you try different things and you get creative ideas.
I was told 50 percent of the population gets cancer. Everybody is going to be affected.
We love those beautiful, Latin American stories where there is an element that's more mysterious and wonderful. I think as a child a lot of us love the idea of the star and more of the supernatural elements.