Catherine Hardwicke [Director]

By: Editor | March 03, 2011 | Ten by Ten

Vampires, werewolves and troubled teenagers are ordinary business for Catherine Hardwicke. Her first film was 2003’s award-winning Thirteen — a gritty exploration of the life of a sexually active, drug- and alcohol-abusing 13-year-old in downtown Los Angeles. The movie was enthusiastically acclaimed at the Sundance Film Festival that year. She directed Twilight, an instant box office success, but differences of opinion with the production company Summit Entertainment prevented her from directing the sequel. Hardwicke is currently working on Red Riding Hood, the horror adaptation of the classic Brothers Grimm fairytale starring Amanda Seyfried and Gary Oldman.

When was the last time you were truly embarrassed and why?
My first three answers to this question were not allowed by my publicist.

What is the best advice you’ve ever received, and who gave it to you?
From a friend: “Don’t go head-on against THE MAN — you will be obliterated.”

What is the most important decision you ever made?
Hiring a publicist to keep me from saying the wrong things in interviews. Anybody need her phone number?

What is your favorite …
Restaurant: 
Shima on Abbot Kinney in Venice, Calif. — outrageous vegetarian sushi in a hi-fi setting.
Chevy Chase movie: Sorry, I haven’t seen one.
Animal (extinct, endangered or domestic): My cat — “the Black Velvet Luxury Item.”
Song to make out to: “Keep the Streets Empty for Me” by Fever Ray. We have a rad make-out session with this song in Red Riding Hood. Fire, straw, passion. 
Vacation destination: I want to go to Machu Picchu and Bali and China and Thailand and Australia next. And Madagascar and Zanzibar and any other countries with high-scoring Scrabble names.

What’s the strangest number you have programmed in your phone?
A hit man I sat next to on a recent international flight.

List three things you cannot live without:
My dwarf tangerine tree, my green dingo and striped undies once a week.

What contemporary artist do you admire and why?
My sister Irene Hardwicke Olivieri — she’s a complete original. Pure passion.

How will you spend this evening?
I’ll be working with two intense composers, Brian Reitzell and Alex Heffes, on the score for Red Riding Hood in a studio in a strip mall in Glendale next to an Armenian gangster clan.

What is your take on the WikiLeaks controversy?
I hope I get to direct his biopic!

How would you define love?
For me, it’s like chasing a tiger.

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