Crave Online: Would you ever just do a generic buddy action comedy just to do something quicker and easier?

Kathryn Bigelow: You know, I think at the point when you’re working on something like Hurt Locker, I think it could be a lot of fun. It would be nice to be able to balance a piece like this with something a little less rigorous, but I’ve never been able to be quite that schematic because I get so emotionally invested in a particular story or idea or subject matter. I always feel like it’s my responsibility as a filmmaker to try to work on material that’s as provocative as possible and therefore, a bit unprecedented. So that makes it less familiar and that makes it more difficult to find really. Also, lately with Hurt Locker, the opportunity to work on something that’s really topical and relevant and scoopy almost. That’s a whole layer that is really exciting and makes it very interesting from a filmmaker standpoint.

Crave Online: Do you wish people would stop talking about you as a female director, or do you just go with that?

Kathryn Bigelow: I suppose I wish it would be irrelevant because I think it just ghettoizes whatever subset one is referring to, and be thought of as a filmmaker. That’s how I view myself so I suppose I imagine that to be the way the world should work.

Crave Online: At least they refer to you as the top of the heap of that stereotype.

Kathryn Bigelow: Well, okay, if you have to. I mean, there are great male directors, there are great female directors but it’s so strange to talk about something with respect to gender. I mean, gender is not an achievement. That, to me, is you’re speaking about approximately 50%, I don't know what the latest percentage is, of the world’s population.

Crave Online: Your Near Dark vampires would have their way with the Cullens from Twilight, right?

Kathryn Bigelow: [Laughs] I don't know. A mashup of them perhaps.

Crave Online: They’re all sensitive now.

Kathryn Bigelow: Self aware? Those guys were anything but, the Near Dark ones.

Crave Online: And you had no stake in a remake they were trying to do?

Kathryn Bigelow: No, I was very excited, obviously, that I think the vampire mythology is, no pun intended, but timeless. Very excited to see a resurgence in it but I sort of feel like, maybe this sounds inappropriate, but I kind of feel like I’ve had my vampire journey, vampiric excursion.

Crave Online: Point Break was Keanu Reeves’ first action movie. Do we have you to thank for Speed and The Matrix?

Kathryn Bigelow: Well, he certainly didn’t play a character prior to Point Break, he wasn’t playing a character like that. In fact, when I was trying to get that movie made, I was determined that he be the actor. I was aware of his work in Bill and Ted’s Excellent Adventure. I read the script and looked at Bill and Ted’s and thought, okay, he’s the guy. I was met with a fair amount of resistance for that exact reason. They hadn’t made the extrapolation that he could go from one identity to another. Yet he did magnificently and he’s so talented. So anyway, I finally found a brave soul in Larry Gordon and Largo Entertainment who decided to take it on.

Crave Online: What did you think of Hot Fuzz?

Kathryn Bigelow: Oh, I loved it. I think Edgar Wright is phenomenal so I loved it. Have you seen Point Break Live? You’ve got to see it. It’s so hysterical. It’s fabulous.

Crave Online: I remember Blue Steel getting panned when it came out. What has it been like to see it go from that to the life it’s had since?

Kathryn Bigelow: It’s something that’s so out of my control and it’s also kind of reassuring that you put something out there and it begins to have a life of its own, and a fairly healthy life on its own, and not really need any kind of armature to support it. I don't know, it’s very exciting that it lived beyond its release date, let’s say.

Crave Online: Strange Days was set in 1999. I’m still waiting for my memory download kit.

Kathryn Bigelow: [Laughs] Well, actually that technology was in existence at the time we were doing our research and had been in existence, not for the same application but in order to improve optics. I think that is in use now, improved optics for people who have really tragically impaired vision. There’s a way of electronically re-manipulating the optic nerve. But I will say that the way synapses work, that would be a virtual impossibility to record somebody else’s experience. I should say nothing is impossible.

Crave Online: But the technology that exists is not recordable or sharable?

Kathryn Bigelow: Not to record off somebody else’s synapse but to improve optic nerve function.

Crave Online: What are you like on the set? Are you a screamer?

Kathryn Bigelow: Oh, man. No, I’m definitely not a screamer. I’m fairly tenacious. I can see the film already so I know exactly what is needed. Yet at the same time, very instinctual when it comes to working with actors. I develop that in the rehearsal phase, whatever that may mean. On Near Dark, I would give all of the actors a task, or rather either tin foil or blankets or spray paint or tape in order to block out the sun in a particular environment, a very large room and I would time it. We’d get it down to two and a half minutes so everybody felt that was kind of the rehearsal phase through kind of activity. In this case, it was spending time with EOD techs and learning the process of bomb disarmament. My point is that it really comes from doing and not necessarily hypothetical.

Crave Online: How great was it to see Near Dark on film again at your retrospective?

Kathryn Bigelow: Yeah, I hadn’t seen it in a while on film. Very few prints exist.

Crave Online: Is there material to put out a good Blu Ray?

Kathryn Bigelow: I’m sure there is. In fact, we got our print for that retrospective from Quentin Tarantino. His print was beautiful. Beautiful, beautiful. I don't know what format you need it in to do a Blu Ray of it. Do you take it from negative or from print?

Crave Online: They just make it digital anyway.

Kathryn Bigelow: Right, so you’d have to come off the negative for that probably.

Crave Online: Have you been excited to see your films come out in hi-def?

Kathryn Bigelow: Yeah, it’s always exciting when you realize that the film has a greater life span than let’s say you anticipated or imagined, that you’ve somehow managed to touch people’s imagination. That’s always rewarding as a filmmaker. That’s kind of the zeitgeist of filmmaking.