Callie Khouri
Callie Khouri
Carolyn Ann "Callie" Khouriis a Lebanese American film and television screenwriter, producer, feminist, and director. In 1992 she won the Academy Award for Best Screenplay Written Directly for the Screen for the film Thelma & Louise, which was controversial upon its release because of its progressive representation of gender politics, but which subsequently became a classic...
NationalityAmerican
ProfessionScreenwriter
Date of Birth27 November 1957
CitySan Antonio, TX
CountryUnited States of America
I don't think any studio - it was a long shot at the time - but I don't think any studio in a million years would make 'Thelma and Louise' right now. But there's so many other kinds of movies they won't make right now.
I love to start characters in a place where you think you know them. We can make all kinds of assumptions about them and think they have no redeeming qualities, but like everyone, they're complex.
I think this happens to a lot of people, men and women, where you reach a point in your life and all of a sudden realize that things have changed. You suddenly realize that people are coming up behind you, that maybe somebody might want to replace you for less money.
I remember when I used to have actual time to write and now you don't have time and you just do it. I think it explains a lot about television.
I think of feminism as more of a political ideology.
With female-oriented movies, unless it's something like 'Bridesmaids' or a romantic comedy, you've got to really worry about your opening weekend. And I'm always telling stories about women, not younger women, and it's just a much tougher audience to get to the movie theater.
I don't know anyone male or female who can quote-unquote have it all. It's a made-up idea. Men don't have it all. They may have it better because they get paid more for the same work, but they don't have it all.
The world will provide you with every imaginable obstacle, but the one most difficult to overcome will be the lack of faith in yourself. Leave it to others to have doubts about you.
Always, in all circumstances, wear comfortable shoes. You never know when you may have to run for your life.
I like writing flawed women, and being one, its something I feel I can write with some veracity and authority.
Movie studios are owned by giant corporations. They care about money; they dont care about movies.
You can't do a movie without villains. You have to have something for the heroines or anti-heroines to be up against, and I wasn't going to contrive some monstrous female, but even if this were the most men-bashing movie ever made-let all us women get guns and kill men-it wouldn't even begin to make up for the 99% of all movies where the women are there to be caricatured as bimbos or to be skinned and decapitated. If men feel uncomfortable in the audience it is because they are identifying with the wrong character.
Would you have a friend who talks to you the way you talk to yourself?
The movie I've watched a million times is 'A Face in the Crowd,' directed by Elia Kazan, starring Andy Griffith and Patricia Neal. I first saw this movie, I guess I was in my early 20s. I'd never heard of it, and somebody told me about it, and I watched it and was just completely jaw-droppingly shocked at how current it was.