Top 22 Callie Khouri Quotes

What I’m mainly interested in is not having women characters that have to be perfect, obviously. That’s something I feel strongly about and have that in every single thing I’ve ever done.

Nashville is the place where I first realized how impossible it is to look at someone and know what is inside them, what special something they possess.

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.

There’s a lot of head-shaking and forehead-slapping when you start to realize just how deep-seated misogyny can be, how systemic and entrenched certain modes of thinking are that are still very much alive.

Chick flick is not a term used to praise a movie. Nobody says ‘it’s a great chick flick.’ It’s a way of being derisive. I’m not clear why it’s ok to do it.

When I lived in Nashville, Tanya Tucker and people like that were coming up, and I’m sure that Loretta Lynn and Tammy Wynette were going, ‘What’s that noise? That’s not country.’ It’s always been this battle where whoever comes up behind the reigning stars isn’t country enough. There really is a lot more crossover now.

If the same energy went into marketing movies to women as they do on the other demographics we might see more of a spike.

One of the magical things about Nashville is just how many incredibly talented people are here and the way they support each other.

Movie studios are owned by giant corporations. They care about money; they don’t care about movies.

I want to make something that’s respectful and respected. And I think you can make something for women that is respected on television.

For me, the movies I like are all independent. And getting an independent feature made, it’s like you get down to the selling organs part, and it just loses some of its luster.

When you look around right now, Nashville is kind of going through another changing of guard; you’re watching the Martina McBrides and the Faith Hills and all of them that have been the big stars for the last however many years, and the next generation is coming in: Miranda Lambert, Carrie Underwood, those girls.

Political stories in general are tough. They just don’t appeal to as wide an audience.

I tried to get a baseball movie made a couple of years ago and I don’t think it didn’t happen because I was a woman, but because sports movie don’t sell internationally.

Every so often when I’m writing, a character might actually be a distinct person in my head – often not an actor or a face, literally a person who just seems to exist in my imagination. Then the challenge is finding somebody who is close enough to that to make me feel like I’ve ended up where I wanted to be.

I call myself a feminist, not a feminist filmmaker. If somebody asked me if I had a feminist sensibility it would be pretty hard to deny, but is it the theme of my work? Not necessarily. I’m interested in a lot of things.

Whenever I’ve seen shows or films set here, they just don’t feel like the real Nashville to me.

There are so many screenwriters with incredible stories to tell, so I hope there will be some kind of shift in the business where very few types of movies are now made by the studios. There needs to be different budgets for different audiences; not everything having to be a huge opening weekend.

You’re allowed to make things for women on television and there’s not like… you don’t have to go through the humiliation of having made something directed at women. There it’s just accepted, whereas if it’s a feature, it’s like ‘So, talk to me about chick flicks.’

I think of feminism as more of a political ideology.

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.

To me, feminism is such a simple description: it’s equal rights, economic rights, political rights, and social rights.