Academy Award Winners

"Once you overcome the one-inch-tall barrier of subtitles, you will be introduced to so many more amazing films."

"We are all human beings—the same human beings. Don’t categorize that you are yellow, you are white, you are Black, and white is better than yellow or Black or any other skin color. That’s stupid things to compare. We are all different and beautiful."

"When I watch the movie, I don’t want to learn anything. I just enjoy it. So whatever they see, they can see [from] a different angle. Some people could understand the mother’s part, or the father’s part, or the grandma’s part—it’s a free country. You can feel whatever you feel like to do."

"The award doesn’t mean nothing to me. My reward is getting new jobs, new projects—that’s my reward. Of course, that moment when you receive the award, you’ll be very happy. You could be very happy in the moment. But I’m a very practical person and a very realistic person. If I get a new job, that’s my reward."

"In this film, it’s very difficult to separate the good ones from the bad ones. Even the rich characters are not your conventional, typical, greedy villains that you see onscreen. I was sympathetic to everyone. I identified with every character, to some degree, but at the same time I also maintained a sense of distance from all of them as well."

"I grew up in a middle-class family. Even in terms of real estate, the house that I grew up in is in the middle – between the semi-basement home and the rich house you see in the film. I was really close with friends and relatives from both classes."

"Are they? As I am one of the filmmakers creating genre films and not a critic with a general overview of the trend or what is coming out, I’m glad to hear it. I am a huge fan of genre films and although I like to destroy or twist genre conventions, generally I operate within the boundaries of genre. There is a very specific kind of cinematic excitement that genre films can bring. And that is what I love about it as well, so I am glad to see it."

"My main job is not promoting a film, it’s writing scripts, and, of course, I’m doing that right now, in hotel rooms and on flights, but it hasn’t been easy. So there’s a duality with this entire process. Of course, it’s great and exciting, but I’m also desperate to return to my main job as soon as possible."

"I don’t think I’m pessimistic at every point, but I want to be honest in the face of the reality that stands in front of us. With Parasite, my thinking was that mankind’s achieved such great development — like the mobile devices we see in front of us but if we think about the past 30 years, has the gap between rich and poor dissipated? Not really. I have a son myself, do I think things are going to improve in his generation? I don’t really think that either. That is the source of a lot of fear, actually. So I wanted to be honest with that fear and sadness and really deliver that."

"This is something that applies to all countries, yes. Of course, there can be understanding and sympathy and communication between different classes, but I do think that it is very plausible things could turn out the way they do in the film. We are all aware of this gap between rich and poor and this is very sad and frightening, but what is fundamentally even more frightening is the fear I mentioned earlier, that this won’t be resolved in the future, in our children’s generation. That’s something we all feel, and it’s very hard to get rid of."

"A lot of people say it’s a universal story because it’s about the gap between rich and poor, but I don’t think that’s all the answer. I think this film has done so well because it appeals in a very cinematic way, as a film in itself. I really want to take time to look back at what that cinematic appeal was."

"Compared to Japanese or Hong Kong film, the history of Korean cinema is relatively lesser known to American and European audiences. I hope, due to the opportunities that have arisen from Parasite, people will realize that Korean cinema has also had a lot of masters"

"I’m really enjoying quarantine, because I can rest. I don't have to see anybody. I can just stay home 24 hours a day and stay in bed, my favorite place."

"If somebody did something bad to me or was rude to me, I will never forget. But if somebody's nice to me, I will also never forget. This means people think I'm a very dangerous woman who never forgets."

"Usually, actors and actresses fall in love with theater or film, and study and learn so they can be successful, but that was not the case with me. I bumped into acting. I fell into it. So that’s why I tried to practice a lot, trying to prepare before performances, because I felt like I was not ready like they were. I had to do more. They had prepared their whole lives to be an actor. Me, I was just looking for a part-time job and I wound up being an actress. That’s why I started that habit, and I’m really grateful now that I’ve always done that. They say practice makes you perfect. That is something I really strongly believe in. As I went through my career, I found if I read lines over and over, I don’t even know how many times I’d read them, but the more I read and memorize, the more different ways I would find to play the role. That’s why I do it over and over. Some people think it’s stupid, but no. To me, it’s the best way to learn a character."

"My two sons are Korean Americans living in the states. My son living in LA, he is worrying about me coming to the states for the Oscars because you might get hurt on the street or something like that. Who knows? You’re an old woman. They’re aiming old woman. Can’t you have security guard or something? That’s terrible. He’s worrying about me just being old woman getting attacked."

"With age, what happens is you become freer, in a way, and more relaxed. You don’t have the weight of responsibility. I can actually step back and enjoy, and also be more forgiving. I’m very frank about myself and in all situations. It sometimes has been a help and sometimes been a distraction in this career. Usually, I tried never to have interviews when I was working in Korea because they would misunderstand or misinterpret me, so I was afraid to have public interviews. Here in the United States, I can do more interviews, but it is more an issue of language, of my English."

"Sorry to tell you, because I’m usually working in the Korean industry, not knowing this kind of award. I didn’t even expect having awards from America. I’m living on the other side of the world so to me, first, what’s happening to me? I don’t know. But when we made this film, we didn’t expect this warm welcoming. We just made it together, just like family. So I’ve been numb."

"I practice a lot for a role to memorize the lines thoroughly. Some people think the line is not important, but to me it's very important. That line for that role is the character’s thinking and her attitude and her everything. So if I memorize it thoroughly, I can just play it this way or that way freely. That's my mission. On set I always have my script. And my cigarette."

"I also told him [ Brad Pitt ] to come to Korea. He promised that he will. But I don’t really believe the words of Americans. Their vocabulary is so fancy. He said my performance was very respectable and whatnot, but I’m old. I don’t fall for those words."

"The absolute love and sacrifice of our grandmother and parents are a universal story."

"When some project comes from America, people in Korea think I admire Hollywood, No, I don't admire Hollywood. The reason I keep coming is because if I come to the States and work, maybe I'm able to see my son one more time. That’s from the bottom of my heart."

"Second-generation Asian Americans think they are Americans but in the eyes of Americans, they don’t look American. There must be a dilemma like that."

"Sci-fi gives you the advantage of being able to say what you want pretty directly. Like, in Snowpiercer, that scene where Ed Harris has a long monologue in the engine car. Parasite has the landscape stone. The movie has symbols, but I wanted to focus more on the mundane atmosphere, on the stories of our neighbors."

"I acted like a punk. I was out of order beyond belief. I make no excuses for it."

"I think Batman is a pretty universal character. I remember him as a child. But I think Christian [Bale] did the best I’ve seen so far, because of that tortured background of loss. The original Batman, they’re not much remembered as a Batman character – they were not used for training [chuckles]. You had to really – there was a darkness and a damagedness about his character that I think they got right with Christian Bale. Especially in the last two. But that doesn’t have anything to do with Ben Affleck. I think he’s willing to take risks. He seems to be."

"The ultimate embodiment of Bruce Wayne. He has exactly the balance of darkness and light that we were looking for."

"Batman is his hidden, demonic rage-filled side. The creature Batman creates is an absolutely sincere creature and one that he has to control but does so in a very haphazard way. He's capable of enacting violence – and to kill – so he's constantly having to rein himself in."

"What's strange about the way my brain functions is that the only thing that has ever made me feel calm is knowing clearly what I want."

"For me, I value privacy so much and I understand why I need to talk about the work, the films and all of that but it's incredibly hard to reveal stuff about my life, so it makes me feel pretty boring and very protective."

"The first time I had a panic attack I was sitting in my friend's house, and I thought the house was burning down. I called my mom and she brought me home, and for the next three years it just would not stop. I would go to the nurse at lunch most days and just wring my hands. I would ask my mom to tell me exactly how the day was going to be, then ask again 30 seconds later. I just needed to know that no one was going to die and nothing was going to change."

"Flaws are my favorite part of people, usually."

"I am blessed with a great family and great people around me that would be able to kick me in the shins if I ever for one minute got lost up in the clouds. I've been really lucky in that sense."

"Oh, for the love, I can't even simulate sex without dying!. I had a little asthma attack, without any prior knowledge that I had asthma, during the scene where we had to jump up and down for hours and hours screaming and yelling on the bed. [It] was humiliating, because it was the second day of shooting."

"I think Marty's use of violence is very valid. He never uses it gratuitously, he always makes a very strong point….if you're going to show violence and it's done with conviction the way Marty does it then it is correct."

"When you're a film-maker you become addicted, your family suffers, your friends suffer, to say nothing of what's going on on the set. It's an incredible way to show the impulse to view. Directors are constantly looking."

"Ah, but they aren't violent until I've edited them."

"Editing is a lot about patience and discipline and just banging away at something, turning off the machine and going home at night because you're frustrated and depressed, and then coming back in the morning to try again."

"You get to contribute so significantly in the editing room because you shape the movie and the performances," she says. "You help the director bring all the hard work of those who made the film to fruition. You give their work rhythm and pace and sometimes adjust the structure to make the film work – to make it start to flow up there on the screen. And then it's very rewarding after a year's work to see people react to what you've done in the theater."

"We’re in a time when film is so loud and the audience is looking for shocking. It’s hard to convince people that there is an audience out there that wants quiet stories."

"I didn’t think that I was powerless…But I didn’t think that I was powerful."

"It was a gift to have something else that I was passionate about, because at the end of the day, it comes down to the work and the art."

"I would say that I’ve tried to listen to the voice inside…Luckily, from a very early age, I was able to understand that when things don’t feel quite right, that was probably not the role for me."

"Malek has about three facial expressions in his arsenal, so his eyes do a lot of the work on Mr. Robot."

"I could use my imagination and I read a lot about mental health. And that puts you in the perspective of just how difficult it is to live in a mind that that doesn't always feel like your own and how…I mean, just, that's brutal in its own way. And that can be a very lonely, difficult place, and a very difficult frame of mind to articulate to anyone, to even want to share with anyone."

"Someone took a selfie with me today on the street, and to see them plug in their passcode right in front of you — it’s not something I would ever do, and it’s borderline creepy, but my show just makes me so much more aware of how to conduct oneself in public. It’s little things we take for granted, like holding your passport out while you wait in line at an airport, and someone can screenshot that in a heartbeat. The amount of information that we arbitrarily extend to the world is very mind-boggling to me. It’s like we’re saying, “Go ahead,” Clint Eastwood-style, “make my day.”"

"I know Elliot does not come across as charismatic, but to me he is."

"One word: Mischief."

"Everything has become so easy. It's great that it's at your fingertips, but I miss those good old days. And we're connected, but it can be very alienating. There is this distance between all of us because we're speaking to each other through cameras and monitors and icons and Emojis."

"I really wanted Elliot's clothes to feel like it was a bit of an urban combat uniform. We needed the wardrobe to reflect his desire to disappear from the world. So I suggested a hoodie. Well, maybe I shouldn't say 'suggest.'"