Nancy Meyers Says Robert De Niro Plays 'the Best Guy I've Ever Written'

On relating to Anne Hathaway’s character:

Jules has created this startup, but the investors think somebody else should come in because it’s too big for one person to run. And I can relate to that as a writer-director. Just because you wrote the script, are you also the one that should direct it? Not saying that’s been said to me, but I’m sure people wonder that. To me, yeah the answer is ‘Yeah.’ Because you’re the person that’s the beating heart you know, and you want to keep that heartbeat alive at your workplace.

On Robert De Niro’s character being different from her previous male characters:

I think the [sic] he’s best guy I’ve ever written. And he’s the guy you wish you had in your life for sure. You know, he’s not the dangerous bad boy. He’s good. He’s a really good man. He comes to the aid of our girl Jules in many ways. And this movie examines men more than I normally do. We were talking about the disconnect between girls and guys right now that I see a little bit, and then when you look at movies, all the girls are in movies together and all the guys are in movies together. Let’s get them in a movie together. The girls aren’t just funny when they’re with the girls and same for the guys.

And on using Pinterest:

Normally what I do is I take one wall in my office and it becomes a bulletin board. I’ll put wardrobe ideas up, set design ideas up, all kinds of things. Now, Pinterest is that. So I created a Pinterest, one for Annie, one for Bob, one for Annie’s wardrobe, Bob’s house, the startup, I have the child’s room. When I went to make the movie, I invited everybody to look at the Pinterest. It was a great work tool. You know, some people have accidentally found it and pinned from it, and I’m sure they have no idea what I’m talking about on some of my pins, because I write notes to people on it, like ‘Wouldn’t these be great,’ yada yada yada, that kind of thing.

The Intern is out in theaters on September 25.