Thelma Schoonmaker

Doing 3D on 'Hugo' was a big learning curve for me, but fun!

If I hadn't met Scorsese, I would never have become a filmmaker. He has taught me everything I know about editing and has given me the best job in the world.

Having been raised overseas, I wanted to become a diplomat. But the State Department thought I was too 'liberal' to be happy with that job.

In the very beginning, women were editors because they were the people in the lab rolling the film before there was editing. Then when people like D. W. Griffith began editing, they needed the women from the lab to come and splice the film together. Cecil B. DeMille's editor was a woman. Then, when it became a more lucrative job, men moved into it.

I have the best job in the world.

My job is so wonderful.

It's part of your job always as an editor: you always have to drop stuff.

An actor's performance can be improved or shaped - or ruined - by what takes you use, how long you are on the actor's face, what line you put on the other actor's face, and when do you use close-ups or wide shots or two shots.

When you're in a movie with an audience, you can feel where a film is dragging. People start to move. They fidget. You need that perspective. To give it a cold eye.

With Technicolor restorations, it's about getting the color right.

My family goes way back in New York. So I am a New Yorker; I feel like a New Yorker. It's in my bones.

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.