Debra Granik

The immigration process is so unbelievably complicated and expensive and endless!

— Debra Granik

I'm always searching to learn more about our large and diverse country.

— Debra Granik

You can't just pill away injuries that go deep in someone. They don't just stop those feelings from existing.

— Debra Granik

I'd love to do a comedy - something where a character has to use humor to navigate the absurdities of life.

— Debra Granik

Humour is used in struggle and solving difficult things, and I relish that tradition.

— Debra Granik

History has shown that there needs to be some agora, or public spaces, and I think that we already live a lot…

— Debra Granik

The struggle to have a living wage doesn't come easy. You're ready to work, you want it, you seek it... but it's…

— Debra Granik

American film isn't just film and glamor and fame and the lives of people who are fortunate financially. Those aren't the only…

— Debra Granik

In documentary, you are sometimes burdened, or you feel very responsible for dealing with - I want to say - more complicated…

— Debra Granik

There's a lot of journalism about poverty, but sometimes it just helps to see that there's a real person who becomes a…

— Debra Granik

The Oscars have always been an arena in which very commercial films are recognised, and I don't mean that in a bitter…

— Debra Granik

A big part of the equation for 'Winter's Bone' was making it for so little that we owe nobody. We had a…

— Debra Granik

Some people have these small, positive schemes for survival, a kind of strength that I am attracted to, maybe because I'm prone…

— Debra Granik

I worry an awful lot about people and how they're faring. When I worry about people, whether their job is squashing their…

— Debra Granik

Sometimes I wonder about the people who can do very reflective work about their own ethnic group or their own families, or…

— Debra Granik

I would fail if I had to work with stars. And I also can't afford to work that way. I can't afford…

— Debra Granik

The protagonist in 'Winter's Bone' was a really good role for a female. She was strong; she didn't have to conform to…

— Debra Granik

I think, in some ways, that is the balm of stories, of fables, of tales: it's the way we're wired. We have…

— Debra Granik

There are sayings and mantras that sometimes occur in filmmaking discussions, and one of them is that sometimes filmmaking is an olive…

— Debra Granik

Some of the subject matters that I like to make stories about are definitely not inherently commercial. So I have to look…

— Debra Granik

I'm reaching for emotion and drama, the drama of the everyday: what happens when you don't have shelter, food, and clothing. There…

— Debra Granik

It's kind of a test when you read a novel thinking about its potential for the screen: How does it play on…

— Debra Granik

I don't want to make fictional characters who are perfect - that's a vanilla situation - but the fact is you are…

— Debra Granik

I get very caught up in the day-to-day and immersed in the scenes as they unfold. It's harder for me, as I'm…

— Debra Granik

I don't want to be on a soapbox, but I feel like a lot of documentary filmmakers are part of the ancient…

— Debra Granik

There are so many American experiences that we can't know about unless we venture out to create a dialogue, to observe, ask…

— Debra Granik

My producing partner and I were shown a novel we really liked. It was called 'My Abandonment' by Peter Rock, and we…

— Debra Granik

You will never go wrong with actually photographing process. It's primitive. Humans love to see the bipedal animal in us finish things.…

— Debra Granik

I love to champion some of the hardworking actors where, it's been said to me, they don't bring money. But to me,…

— Debra Granik

When men's lives become extremely hard, women learn how to deal with them and assist them but also develop quiet systems of…

— Debra Granik

Stereotypes are convenient. And yet within them, everyone will say there's something that - you know, they don't come for no reason.…

— Debra Granik

When I read Daniel Woodrell's novel 'Winter's Bone,' I was drawn to the characters, the setting, and the sound of the dialog.

— Debra Granik

In the U.K., working-class lives are depicted with the characters' humour, but in the U.S., people with difficulties are often depicted with…

— Debra Granik

I'm always looking for instances of people doing things for and with each other for pleasure, for passion, for camaraderie, from kindness.…

— Debra Granik

I feel as though perhaps there's not a great match between the content I'm attracted to and the content that is considered…

— Debra Granik

Sometimes you get ensnared by an idea, and it's what I call 'the sticky burr': You go hiking, and a burr sticks…

— Debra Granik

I'm looking for a living wage and to continue my work. The frustration comes from when I can't do the things that…

— Debra Granik

Films set in 90210 are ten a penny. But there's rarely room to make films about a different postal code, to show…

— Debra Granik

People need meeting places. You need places where ideas get exchanged and you see each other's faces once in a while.

— Debra Granik

'Winter's Bone' really suited having a lower budget. It would be so hard rolling into a rural setting, a place where people…

— Debra Granik