Kim Novak & Alfred Hitchcock on the set of Vertigo (1958)
On Kim Novak’s performance: “You think you’re getting a lot. You’re not. It was very difficult to obtain what I wanted from [Kim Novak] because her head was full of her own ideas. But as long as I’m pleased with the result…In any case, the role was intended for another actress, Vera Miles. We were ready to begin filming…when, instead of seizing the opportunity of a lifetime, Vera Miles became pregnant. I ask you! I was offering Vera Miles a big part, the chance to become a beautiful, sophisticated blonde, a real actress. We’d have spent a heap of dollars on it, and she has the bad taste to get pregnant. I hate pregnant women, because then they have children.”
-Alfred Hitchcock 
“I don’t know if he ever liked me. I never sat down with him for dinner or tea or anything, except one cast dinner, and I was late to that. It wasn’t my fault, but I think he thought I had delayed to make a star entrance, and he held that against me. During the shooting, he never really told me what he was thinking. I know that Hitchcock gave me a lot of freedom in creating the character, but he was very exact in telling me exactly what to do. How to move, where to stand. I think you can see a little of me resisting that in some of the shots, kind of insisting on my own identity.”
-Kim Novak

Kim Novak & Alfred Hitchcock on the set of Vertigo (1958)

On Kim Novak’s performance: “You think you’re getting a lot. You’re not. It was very difficult to obtain what I wanted from [Kim Novak] because her head was full of her own ideas. But as long as I’m pleased with the result…In any case, the role was intended for another actress, Vera Miles. We were ready to begin filming…when, instead of seizing the opportunity of a lifetime, Vera Miles became pregnant. I ask you! I was offering Vera Miles a big part, the chance to become a beautiful, sophisticated blonde, a real actress. We’d have spent a heap of dollars on it, and she has the bad taste to get pregnant. I hate pregnant women, because then they have children.”

-Alfred Hitchcock

“I don’t know if he ever liked me. I never sat down with him for dinner or tea or anything, except one cast dinner, and I was late to that. It wasn’t my fault, but I think he thought I had delayed to make a star entrance, and he held that against me. During the shooting, he never really told me what he was thinking. I know that Hitchcock gave me a lot of freedom in creating the character, but he was very exact in telling me exactly what to do. How to move, where to stand. I think you can see a little of me resisting that in some of the shots, kind of insisting on my own identity.”

-Kim Novak