Directors Quotes by Bill Condon, Leonardo DiCaprio, Karl Polanyi, John Keltonic, Naveen Andrews, Viggo Mortensen and many others.
But you really – I always think that a director has got to adapt to whatever the needs of the actor are. You know, so if you take someone like Eddie Murphy, who is not a big fan of rehearsal. You know he comes out of stand-up. He comes – it’s all about capturing the moment – in the moment, you know.
I can remember getting rejected systematically by casting directors as a young kid. I felt like the biggest outsider there ever was; that I’d never belong in that club.
To allow the market mechanism to be the sole director of the fate of human beings and their natural environment….would result in the demolition of society.
I’ve been a full-time composer for many years, and I’m still learning all the time. There is always more than one musical “solution” to each movie scene, but my goal is to compose music that works perfectly for the director, and me!
It is not easy to get parts in mainstream films for most people of color. Hollywood and British writers are not writing parts for us, or the directors are not interested in casting us in parts that are color-blind.
I’ve never been conscious of having any real career plan, and I do not have a wish-list of actors, directors, screenwriters, or cameramen I’m hoping to work with. Life, I feel, has a way of leading us to the right situations and people, or at least to interesting ones.
When I write a film, the film gets handed off to a producer and a director and I go my merry way. With television, I am expected and contracted to stick around and actually produce what I’ve written.
I don’t like the sort of hierarchical, totalitarian type of room a lot of directors can find themselves in.
I doubted that there were Communists hiding behind every corporation desk and director’s chair.
That’s the trouble with directors. Always biting the hand that lays the golden egg.
But I don’t really care for directors flaring up and trying to humble some actor, which they would do to try and make an example out of them so everybody else would stay on the ball – and David wasn’t anything like that.
I would love to meet some directors, and why not do some other movies in America? But, I’m not obsessed with this idea. I’m feeling very free in Europe.
When I took the job as EstГ©e Lauder’s creative director, the first thing I did was go into the archives! I love taking our heritage and making it modern.
I acted for so many years and sat on a million sets and worked with a million different directors so that is to me some of the best training you can get.
To be that big of a star and that grounded and that classy, I’m mean [ George Clooney] was a true mentor for me and, as a director, he’s incredible.
Everything is the director’s fault – you can quote me on that. There are no excuses.
Every director is themselves; [they’re] not playing a part.
It’s not the ideal situation to have two directors. It’s just not the ideal thing.
You hear again and again that audiences want to see movies that are different and critics say we [directors] make the same thing again and again in Hollywood, then you go and make something different and you get kicked in the gut for it.
I’m always looking for a way to surprise audiences. That’s, I feel, my job as a director. I felt that Amy Adams playing a tough woman in ‘The Fighter’ was a surprise. People saw her as a princess.
Some directors don’t tell you that it’s not your fault, so you get increasingly depressed that you’re not delivering what’s required, and then you discover it’s not you at all, it’s something in the background that’s out of focus.
I guess I am basically most comfortable when I’m alone. As a kid, I was very much a loner. I love long distance running and long distance biking. A director once pointed out that those are all very isolated exercises you do for hours at a time.
I’m only wanted by directors for the image I give off, and it makes me angry. I always wanted to be an actor and not a beauty pageant winner.
I act once in awhile if something comes up that seems fun. I like to do it – its a lot of fun because theres no responsibility. You let other people have the headaches. The director has all of the headaches.
You have to be strong to be a carpenter, maybe, but the director of a film doesn’t need to have muscles.
I wouldn’t not want to be a director and write as I wouldn’t not to want to be a writer and direct movies.
I always felt, and still feel, one of my best strengths as a director is having been an actor for a long time. Nobody knows actors and their insecurities and strengths and everything more than somebody who’s done it before.
I view filmmaking as a director’s medium.
You hope and pray that you’ll get involved with a director that you understand and who has the same sensibility as you do and knows how to push you and bring out the best in you.
I think the reason I was able to get the jobs I did is because I worked for some very strong, self-possessed filmmakers who wouldn’t listen to the executive-suited wisdom, and they believed in me from director to actor. Not from salesman to commodity.
I think one of the major things a director has to do is to know his subject matter, the subject matter of his script, know the truth and the reality of it. That’s very important.
And I just want to work with good directors and good people.
Some people are directors and I think they should stay behind the camera.
I once gave a talk at a girls’ school and, once I’d finished, 29 out of the 30 girls wanted to be film directors. I think that’s where we need to get girls interested in making films. We need to give them the idea that they can, that it’s one of the things on their horizon.
I always want to challenge myself as a writer. I consider myself more of a writer than I do a director.
I’ve always had the utmost respect and awe of what the lens can do and what a director can do with just a camera move.
One of the things about working for an old school studio like Warner Bros. is that there is an institutional culture and institutional memory, in terms of production design, camera work, and directors who understand how to do this kind of thing.
A musical is only as good as its director. The same can also be said for the CIA.
I have no reason as a director to have films go up in versions that I don’t like. My only experience of film after ten years is honestly that if a picture doesn’t get second-guessed you’re looking at four Oscars, and if a picture does get second-guessed, you’re not. I’ve got an advanced degree in that lesson.
I think a lot of good directors listen to music while they’re working. The songs just don’t become a part of the film. They’re replaced.
Love who and what you are and what you do.
In N.Y.C., I auditioned for mostly ‘quirky friend’ roles. Since casting directors in L.A. lacked a preconceived notion of me, I was able to reinvent my type a bit, which was essential in booking the role of Amanda on ‘Ugly Betty.’ I don’t believe I would have auditioned for that role in N.Y.
I think film and television are really a director’s medium, whereas theatre is the actor’s medium.
I can make fried tofu, boiled tofu, stuffed tofu. Cutlets and other fancy stuff, that’s for other directors.
I don’t come in with any preconceived ideas, and although I will have done some preparation, I can go which way the director wants.
The film [Dream of Life] is the way it is because it was the rhythm of my life, and also because the director and the editor are both gifted and both fine human beings.
It’s a great luxury for me to be able to write on the films that I direct, and kind of a nice thing to be able to write enough to get credit, which is difficult for a director.
The worst is when I talk myself into something. Sometimes you take things because you want to work with a certain actor, or you want to work with a director, even if the script or the part’s not that great.
A lot of film directors are quite scared of actors. They are a bit of a nightmare sometimes, but I like them. It looks like cunning, but you try to get extra things from them all the time, by stealth, by making them feel confident, so they trust you and you can push a bit.
It’s fun to do something funny and have the director laughing. It makes you feel good.
I found it to be more challenging to be in a huge effects movie, because a lot of the things aren’t there.You have to trust the director and react to nothing.
Winning an Oscar attracts the attention of directors and other actors and creates a boost in salary, particularly for someone like Halle Berry. For an established star like Denzel Washington, the benefits are less tangible.
My directors of photography light my films, but the colours of the sets, furnishings, clothes, hairstyles – that’s me. Everything that’s in front of the camera, I bring you.
There are two types of directors: the directors who take and directors who give.
I should mention that I am a member of the board of directors of Dimensional Fund Advisors.
Maybe many directors are trying to create their own style of filmmaking, or to respond to audiences that come expect a certain style from them. But I don’t care about that – I don’t intend to have a ‘Miike’ style. I just pour myself into each film, enjoy it, and then what comes out just seems to have a ‘Miike’ style.
Directors approach me for doing ‘strong’ women characters which, as an actor, increases a sense of responsibility to give my 100 per cent and even more for the faith they entrust on me.
Every director is different. And all the movies are very different, and the characters are very different.
Long before I ever started acting, believe it or not, I always knew I wanted to be a director.
Making movies can be a creative exciting project for director and rest of staff.
As a first time director it’s interesting, but not all that different from what I did before. A lot of parts of this job seem to be very similar to running a big company.
I had a sort of bad experiences as a playwright early on, when directors were putting in huge concepts that I didn’t intend, or they were stylizing something that was compromising the play, so I started to think like, “well if I’m going to fight against this, I should learn how to direct”.
I was really amazed when I started hearing ‘Songbird’ on the radio. I couldn’t believe that the record company promotion department had actually convinced radio music directors to play it -because there wasn’t anything like it on the radio at the time.
Sooner or later, directors in Germany will start casting without regard to where a person is from. It shouldn’t matter anymore.
The best thing an actor can be is flexible, because all directors are different and all actors are different.
I have so much respect for television actors and directors. We’re on set doing 16-hour days, and that’s just what we do.
As an actor, you’re a color of paint on someone else’s palette. But as a director, it’s your canvas and you make the painting you want to make.
With the most interesting directors, the cast comes together to make something magical that nobody counted on.
I think every director’s different. Every director’s got his own style. I mean, when I directed, I basically just screamed for eight hours a day, twelve hours a day.
The director has to win, because you should never force a director to shoot something they don’t believe in.
You must become the producer, director and actor in the unfolding story of your life.
I like working with directors much, because I want to be able to give myself completely to their vision. Otherwise I would only do what I could do, again and again. I want to be taken by someone in a different direction.
Things maybe take longer usually when it comes to TV – especially network TV. There are usually multiple levels that you have to go through in terms of the casting director, the producers, the studio, the network, reading with other people.
‘Election’ is a movie I’d give a leg to cross the director’s name out and put mine in.
I am still very surprised that I managed to make that film [Close Up]. When I actually look back on that film, I really feel that I was not the director but instead just a member of the audience.
I learnt a lot from the directors with whom I have worked like Sudhir Mishra in ‘Daas Dev,’ Prawaal Raman in ‘Main Aur Charles.’
Ang Lee’s been nominated for best director for “Life of Pi,” which is what I’m going to call the six weeks after I take this dress off.
[Alfred] Hitchcock was very interested in the image on the screen.As is any good cinema director. That is the language they speak. It is not literature, it is images on screen.
I really think the mind of someone who hasn’t been welded into place by their work or studios or actors or this whole society is a wonderful mind to work with, so I’d like to do a big picture with an unknown director.
In a play, the director is God, and I’m a great arguer. Rather boringly so, I think, about trying different things.
I like great directors who are scarce. Prolific ones are nice too but for me, there’s something about the scarcity that makes it all the more valuable.
I just knew how to do the one thing I did, and whether I did it well or not depended on who the director was.
I think theatre helped, only because it was acting experience. I got to work with a lot of directors.
I think when you have some success as a kid, your notion of being a good actor is pleasing the director, doing exactly what they tell you to do.
The thing about Hitchcock which is quite extraordinary for a director of that time, he had a very strong sense of his own image and publicizing himself. Just a very strong sense of himself as the character of Hitchcock.
A long-playing full shot is what always separates the men from the boys. Anybody can make movies with a pair of scissors and a two-inch lens.
If you’re sounding right, you’re probably walking right, and vice versa. If you get the footwork right – if you get even one line right in a rehearsal, the director will say, do you know when you said that, it was exactly the character. You were – really landed on it.
If I get lucky and I can choose, I would always choose a really good story and screenplay, even if I don’t know the director. If there’s a good screenplay, there’s a chance that something good is going to happen.
Man, without a saving touch of woman in him, is too doltish, too naive and romantic, too easily deluded and lulled to sleep by his imagination to be anything above a cavalryman, a theologian or a corporation director.
It’s great working with directors and with somebody else’s vision.
What happened in the late Fifties, early Sixties in French cinema was a fantastic revolution. I was in Italy, but completely in love with the nouvelle vague movement, and directors like Godard, Truffaut, Demy. ‘The Dreamers’ was a total homage to cinema and that love for it.
Some directors expect you to do everything; write, be producer, psychiatrist. Some just want you to die in a tragic accident during the shooting so they can get the insurance.
When I do any stand-up, you’re the writer, director, and producer. You’re alone.
What I always meant by that was that I do believe that a lot of directors, and writers, and sometimes producers just lose their edge because they haven’t seen anybody or talked to anybody or been with anybody who isn’t a kind of replica of themselves for a long period of time.
The choice that you really have is that you can go and work for TV which is so badly paid that you have to really churn them out which I think probably helps you develop certain muscles. I’m not sure though that you really want to have those muscles as a director.
One thing that is true in TV is that you do hire the directors. As the writer, it’s very different than in features, where you feel like, “If I want this to be this way, I better direct it.”
Overseas directors who want to work in Hollywood, the language barrier is not a problem. With the right talent, any director can be successful.
Horror movies, man, the blood entails so much time. And horror movies are not fun; definitely not starting there as a director. Definitely not horror.
It’s always fun to get to do independent film because I believe that that’s the life blood of film. It’s about writers and directors who truly have their own vision, and that’s hard.
I’m a director’s actor; I’m a storyteller’s actor.
The director, Antoine Fuqua, relies on small details, which anchor the vigilante-as-saint myth in at least a minimal degree of reality.
It’s dangerous for one actor to advise another one, especially when you’re not in charge. On the set, I’m never gonna tell another person, “Here’s what I think you should do.” That’s a discussion they should only have with the writers, producers, and directors.
Sundance is the only hand that feeds for women directors.
Existence for eternity could get a little boring… especially towards the end.
The more shows that are produced, the more writers are hired, producers are hired, actors are hired, directors are hired, it means the more people will get employed. It’s better for the economy. It’s a fantastic thing.
There’s very exciting directors who haven’t made a feature yet. That’s what’s cool about the job – the ever-changing landscape of people you could potentially work with.
James DeMonaco is one of my favorite directors I’ve ever worked with. I think he shoots really well and all that, but the work environment he creates – he makes everyone feel respected, he makes everyone feel appreciated, and he’s a true collaborator.
For me, creatively, I’d suffocate if I played the same thing, over and over again. I want challenges. I want to sit down with a director and be like, “I’ve never done this before, but it’s going to be exciting. It’s scary, but really thrilling, so let’s do it!”
The directors [who know every detail] make films that are complete, basically.
I don’t blame any director for wanting to do something more commercial. That’s all part of the business. I certainly have done it, as an actor.
It can be a bit annoying if another actor is trying to talk to the director and the wife is sitting on his lap.
I’ve learnt so much from every film and every director – a new perspective, a greater appreciation of the art.
I think the first film you do with your instincts because you haven’t learned with another director or you haven’t worked on other films, so you tend to do things your own way. I think what I learned the most was to take your time, to try to be less rushed into things and have some distance with what you’re doing.
The main reason for choosing a project is not really the renown of the director that’s making the project. I feel like it’s the fact of an actor to constantly want to do different things.
I was the executive editor on a little magazine called Greek Accent, whose only claim to fame is that its art director went on to be the art director of Discover for many years.
Sometimes you don’t need to explain how you care and love someone so much, but I really love him as a person and as a director. I wanted to be perfect for Michael Mann. I wanted to give the best of my best of my best. I don’t know if I did, but I was touched by him. He’s totally inspirational.
If anyone has the opportunity to work with that woman, jump at it. She is the most generous, most giving director I have ever worked with in my entire life. She is classy. She speaks a dozen difference languages.
Unfortunately they’re practically all dead. And many were my closest associates: friends, co-directors, whatever you want to say – my partners in crime.
I had a role in ‘Crossroads’ when I was about 21, and then I went on to perform in ‘Small Change’ and then ‘Piaf’ in the Donmar Warehouse, London, and it was when I was there that some casting directors spotted me.
I’m definitely one of those actresses who comes to a set knowing how I want to do a scene, and I definitely love input from my directors and my writers. I know that there’s some actors who like to be left alone, they like to be very independent, but I actually really enjoy the teamwork.
Songs are pretty easy. They are small, they are modular, they are about as big as a bagel. They are easy to build. Films are overwhelming in their magnitude and scope. By comparison, a lot of film directors wish they were writing songs because you can do it while getting your hair cut.
People wonder why first-time directors can make a brilliant picture, then suck on the second one. It’s because they’re a little terrified the first time. So they listen to all the experts around them.
Favourite directors change, like favorite authors. I had a passion for Gide and Stein and Faulkner. But now they’re no use to me anymore. I’ve assimilated them – so, enough, they are a closed chapter. This also applies to film directors.
What a director does… essentially, it’s storytelling, but a director also controls the feeling and the sounds and the texture. It’s an act of creation, like a symphony or a painting or a story. But with different tools.
If I have to wear a hat as a producer to do that, then I’m willing to do that. An actor’s, producer’s and director’s point-of-view is all the same to me, as long as the story’s being told.
Be what we make, and not who we are.
I think what makes a good actor’s director is the same thing that makes a good director. Acting is just one of the trades necessary to make a movie.
I also get fed up with the fact that casting agents and directors have this impression of me as being frail and petite. I find it very patronizing. I’m quite beefy and strong. I was a gymnast in school and I have lots of muscles.
No one appears on our stage unless the director has placed them there for our benefit
I can’t change my gender, and I refuse to stop making movies.
You know, making an animated movie is such a lonesome thing. You mostly don’t see your fellow actors or anything. You go into your booth, you record all your dialogue. It’s very much an issue of trust. You leave it all up to the director.
I think it’s possible to be free in a big production. It’s the eye of the director and the actor and the story.
Most directors make films with their eyes; I make films with my testicles.
Some directors are like it’s their… nothing can change, nothing can move. I like collaborating, even when an extra has an idea, I like to bring to really have collaboration.
I’d say the film to avoid is a director’s second film, particularly if his first film was a big success. The second film is where you’ve really needed to have learned something.
A board of directors that cannot produce reliable audited financial statements for almost seven years simply should not remain in office.
I think the wonderful thing about doing theater is that it’s more of an actor’s medium. I think that film is more of a director’s medium. You can’t edit something out on stage. It’s there.
The candidates at the Republican debate looked like a town council that was outlawing dancing. They looked like a board of directors that was lying about poisoning a river.
With episodic, kind of one-hour directing, they always have guest directors come in, so they don’t have the same person week after week. You get a break.
I am a fan of the monster and horror genre but that’s not my style as a director.
I feel that I am just a storyteller, and whether I am wearing the director hat or the playwright hat, it doesn’t matter.
Casting director was a part-time thing, which later became a full-time job because there was a lack of casting directors in our industry and people were looking for professionals to do it.
The action star’s life is very short. Back in Asia, I can do whatever I want to do. I’m the producer, I’m the director, I can do so many things, but in Hollywood any time I present a script they say: “No, no, no, Rush Hour 3, Rush Hour 4.”
Actors are like kids, they need to play a little bit. And that’s the nature of their job, they need to shake off some energy and then you as the director get them back on track. When you do loosen up the reins, you get some amazing things, but you have to wring out the performances for every last good drop.
Any film that you see is never just the director. If it’s a film that you love, it’s not so easy to say, “Oh it’s directed by this person – that means everything that person directs is going be wonderful.”
I’m a believer in trusting the director.
I believe in the truth of fairy-tales more than I believe in the truth in the newspaper.
I think film, to me, as a director, is about telling a story.
I think you have to be scared every morning that you go out to shoot, or you lose your edge. With actors, there has to be that adrenaline and you have to keep challenging yourself, and I certainly challenge myself, as a director.
The director is the ultimate creative arbiter of what’s going to happen. And as a director myself, you really appreciate collaborating with people who are trying to help you find what you need and what you want.
Well, I certainly was exposed to and learned to appreciate the work of great directors early on. As a kid, my mother used to take me to see really interesting arty films in Los Angeles.
You’re not a star until you love yourself. Directors, yeah, they’ve got to love their own philosophies. But actors have to really love themselves.
I’ve been offered lots of movies. There’s always some actor who’s doing a project and would like to have me do it. But you look at the project and think, ‘Gee, there are a lot of good directors who could do that.’ I’d like to do something only I can do.
I’ve worked with more than 50 directors and I’ve paid attention since day one. That’s pretty much been my education, apart from studying art history and shooting with my own cameras. I’ve seen 50 different sets of mistakes and 50 different ways of achieving.
When we say there’s a dearth of women directors, it’s not that there’s a lack of women who direct: it’s a lack of opportunities and access for women to direct and be supported in that.
European films were what it was about for me – the sensations I needed, the depth, the storytelling, the characters, the directors, and the freedom that you can’t really find in American films.
So I write melodies – thirty, forty, fifty – then I cast them off until I have just two or three. If only one is needed, I go see the director and ask him to decide.
Directors typically have three choices – you do a studio movie and get a paycheck up front, you do an independent movie, which is for your heart and you don’t get paid up front and probably don’t make any money on it, but it hopefully goes to Sundance and is more of an art movie, and then you do TV.
You mustn’t look at a film with only one point of view.
Burt Lancaster was largely responsible for me becoming a director.
(As) a director who is a writer, I have respect for writers, so I’m less likely to step on an idea or a line.
One of the great things about being a director as a life choice is that it can never be mastered. Every story is its own kind of expedition, with its own set of challenges.
When museums are built these days, architects, directors, and trustees seem most concerned about social space: places to have parties, eat dinner, wine-and-dine donors. Sure, these are important these days – museums have to bring in money – but they gobble up space and push the art itself far away from the entrance.
I recognize the amount of time that it takes as a director. I made the choice to stop taking roles outside of L.A. because I didn’t want to miss any of my child’s life.
What I think after reading the script and seeing where the story goes, I go with my instincts on the character. If my instincts are wrong the director and the producers will guide me in the right direction. That’s just kind of how I take on any role, be it a fantasy movie or not.
Why did Erich von Stronheim leave Germany? Why did Hitchcock leave England? If you were a director you’d like to work in Hollywood too. Now go ahead and ask me if I’m still Polish. You people keep asking me this question. You want Polish artists to make it in the world, but when they do, you accuse them of treason.
I tend to … if I decide to do a job, want to be able to trust my director…
I want to get into the theater. I really wanted to be a theater director, but I turned out to be a movie director.
I am still taking care of the creation of the collection alongside my staff, and my daughter Nathalie Rykiel, is the artistic director of Sonia Rykiel, who takes care of a lot of things. We are very alike and also very close.
I’m a good actor in that sense for directors because I always do what they say.
Deb Zane, our casting director on the Hunger Games was very sanguine, from the beginning, about just blocking out what everybody else says that they want.
God gave me a great body and it’s my duty to take care of my physical temple.
Movies, I don’t really get the bad guys. In theater, I get more bad guys. Both audiences and directors are more willing… to allow people to stretch. In movies, you do one thing, and then that’s their reference.
The love scenes that worked, regardless of the director, were the ones where the actors weren’t fearful. When somebody was fearful, you could see it right away. It takes you out of the story, and that’s to be avoided at all costs.
Its different being a director. I suppose, especially if its a story youve written and you feel compelled to tell, in some ways its a lot easier than acting because youre orchestrating the piece. As an actor, sometimes youre trying to second-guess what people want.
As you’re growing up, it’s odd, because directors don’t expect you to grow up. They think you’ll be young forever, but as an actor, there is an awkward period when you’re too young for old or too old for young, and it can be an odd time.
First time films are hard. Even with some of the greatest directors, you look back at their first film, and you are just going, ‘That movie is kind of bad.’
My passion is becoming involved in good work, whether that means as an actor or writer or director or producer or all – that is not as important to me.
The size of budgets does not alter my decision if I should do it. If there’s a movie with a budget of only $1 million that I find interesting, then I’ll sign up, but it has to be in the hands of a director who can do something with it. Ultimately, it’s a director’s medium.
In the year and a half I was on SNL, I never saw anybody ad lib anything. For a very good reason – the director cut according to the script. So, if you ad libbed, you’d be off mike and off camera.
You don’t really audition for Hamlet; Hamlet is one of those roles that a director or producer decides you should do it.
I have been a director who has starred, participated on both sides of the filmmaking process.
Many of the museum directors who make an impact personally curate exhibitions.
I’ve worked with some of the great cinematographers. So I’m always watching what they do and I’m watching how the director composes his shots, just because I find it interesting as an actor; you’re trying to help them out as well.
I am not a master-class director. I am not a teacher. I am a coach. I dont have a methodology. Each actor is different. And on the film set, you have to be next to them all.
The main problem is that the Hollywood system has already made the film before the director shoots a single frame.
When you work with directors who really love actors, who love their contribution, it feels amazing. But sometimes when you work with directors, you feel like you’re in the way.
The rule of thumb for a director or producer – which prevents them from just sticking their names on everything – is that you have to contribute substantially more than 50 percent of the character dialogue and story.
People come up to me and say “Steve, what is film editing?” And I say “How should I know? You’re the director.
She’s got no charisma of any kind [but] I can imagine her being mildly useful to a low-rank porn director.
I wrote a script and I’ve been whispering in director’s ears for a really long time and I’d love to direct.
When I worked on Altar Boys, they wanted to see us having fun. The four of us would have fun on set and steal each other’s lines, and mess with the director.
It’s always different, depending on the writer and the director. A collaborator like Graham Reznick delivers a fully finished piece, perfected in every way. Other writers direct the recording session and then leave quite a bit of the work to us.
I want to work with great directors. I want to work on good material with good actors. I’ve probably done 20 movies at this point and a lot of independents. It’s been an incredible ride and I love it and I’m just going to keep going and doing what I’m doing.
I’d like to produce. I’d like to come up with ideas and collaborate with people and directors and writers that I like, be a part of movies that have the same idea that the movies that impacted me have. I’d like to be able to do that for people.
I am sure I am one of 2000 film directors in the world that Tarantino admires.
I’ve acted with all types, I’ve directed all types. What you want to understand as a director, is what actors have to offer. They’ll get at it however they get at it. If you can understand that, you can get your work done.
As an actor we’re just like workers in a factory, we provide our services to directors.
There’s a different set of writers and a different director for the films, but Marvel has turned it into a pretty spectacular job.
Oftentimes when I’m deciding to do a movie, the main thing is really, that I look at, is the director. I’ve come to feel that more and more. The more movies I’ve done and the older I’ve – the more experience I have, I always knew it was a director’s medium, and I always said that.
Don’t wait around for someone else to tell your story. Do it yourself by whatever means necessary.
Many people worked hard in order to create ‘Crash Landing on You.’ I am grateful to the writer, the directors, and all the production staff.
I wanted to trust in my partners and the directors and producers and do the best I can to deliver what I could deliver.
If a film is very clever and well-written, that’s what gives you freedom as a director. Part of the freedom in directing, for me, is that I’m also the camera operator. That’s the place where things are less rigid, where I can adjust as I go along.
I can tell you it makes a big difference to have a director who is collaborative. What motivates a character in my mind could be completely different from what the director’s thinking. You have to have those conversations ahead of time and throughout the process. It affects the performance.
Any movie’s only as good as the director.
When you work with directors who really love actors, who love their contribution, it feels amazing. But sometimes when you work with directors, you feel like youre in the way.
Once you get the script, you then hope you can get the director that you want. Then you hope he can get the cast he wants. Again, you can go quickly or there can be a million stumbling blocks. There’s just no way to know.
There are many, many different kinds of movies and directors and styles. I don’t mind that a movie looks like a movie.
When you’re doing a medieval show like ‘Pillars,’ it starts off a bit like a school play. You’re all in funny costumes; you’ve had your coffee, and you say, ‘Good morning’. Then you go on set and, if you’ve got good actors and directors, it takes on a life of its own.
There’s very few directors I think in this industry that would pitch to a studio that they wanted to do a multi-layered almost at times existential high action, high drama surreal film that’s sort of locked in his mind. And then have an opportunity to do that.
There’s was no pressure on it for me – I just went in and had fun. Whatever Jason Moore, the director, asked me to do, I did it! I ran around the room acting like a crazy guest on “Jerry Springer” and yelling at the audience. I just went for it.
Before I go off and direct a movie, I always look at four films. They tend to be The Seven Samurai, Lawrence Of Arabia, It’s A Wonderful Life and The Searchers.
If you want to be a great director, be a great screenwriter.
The best director is the one you don’t see.
The FBI director’s probably spent a great deal of pressure to go either way – you know, to have said something, to not have said something. And, you know, he made the decision this was the right way to go. You know, I’m not going to second guess him without knowing all the information related to the investigation.
I really love the experience of moving things around, in terms of being a director.
I’ve never been a fan of directors who clutter a piece with all sorts of crazy preconceptions or weird ideas.
I watch ‘Entourage.’ I aspire the good life that they live and lead. Honestly, I am just trying to be me by trying to do good films, have fun at it and trying to work with good directors, and, of course, I am a bit of a silent party boy, also. I have my share of fun sometime, too.
No ‘mise en scГЁne’ has the right to be repeated, just as no two personalities are ever the same. As soon as a ‘mise en scГЁne’ turns into a sign, a clichГ©, a concept however original it may be, then the whole thing – characters, situation, psychology – become schematic and false.
With RoboCop, I couldn’t be happier because it’s such a quality director.JosГ© Padilha is a young master.
Good directors say, Here’s where the play is. They stand by the heart of the matter. Some of them stand beside it.
My dad is a director/producer and my mom is a dancer; she performed with Alvin Ailey, but I didn’t even think about becoming an actress.
I think ‘Trial & Retribution’ as a brand can go on forever. Its joy is that it has, to an extent, a formula, which gives a comfort routine for viewers. But we allow our directors total autarchy in putting their personalities on their stories.
How many movies do you see when you can say this director really knew what film he wanted to make? I can count them on the fingers of one hand.
My taste in the films I’ve taken as an actor is similar to what I’d do a director or writer: all quite odd, challenging stuff, slightly off-the-wall.
What I like in pictures whether by an old director or a young director is when I have the feeling he or she is really using the capacity of film.
And I may often question choices I make as a producer. But I’ve never questioned the choices I make as a director.
[Director Richard Tanne] was inspired by their [Barack and Michelle Obama] flirtation, and their connection. That’s not normal with politicians who are married – they usually look forced or awkward.
I have to say from an actor’s perspective, to work with a director who has been an actor through most of their career is a pleasure. They generally have a very deep understanding of the process of what you’re doing, of how you are building and exploring the character.
I need to gain a lot more experience. I think so much of being a director, other than the technical aspect and the artistry of it, is the confidence that you are, I think in many ways, you’re the captain of the ship.
A director who gets $150,000 per year from a company and needs the money is not independent.
I feel like some of the best talent is on TV right now, with the writing, acting and great directors. I’ve also been looking for the consistency of work that TV provides for you. And, I always thought it would be really interesting to live with a character for months, if not years.
When I first started acting in movies – as probably a lot of naive young actors do – I made a list of directors that I wanted to work with and sent it to my agent at the time.
I guess once you’ve been acting for a long time, you glean the great bits of good directors and the bad bits from other directors, and you know the way that you would like to be directed.
I’ve been an actor for 10 years now, and if anything I want to talk more about my dad. He taught me that even if you get past the casting director’s door you’ve still got to do your homework: you’ve still got to work hard.
There are definitely reasons to do certain things, but I like to stick to good director, good actor, good script.
I never feel like a smug or a smart-alec film director, and there are plenty of those around.
I only produce directors and movies that I have a lot in common with.
There are always leading characters. There are always complex characters; there are very rewarding plays with great directors and tremendous playwrights, yeah. I’ve done a lot of things with theater that I’m very, very proud of.
The most nurturing of directors can make you feel too comfortable, and you don’t really push for that extra whatever.
I’d been on all the television programs as an actor, as a writer, as a director, as a producer.
You have to be open to the energy. If you can open your heart to the energy, that great love energy, of this entire universe, good things will happen to you. BUT, you’ve gotta believe. You’ve gotta believe in the goodness.
A lot of the projects that I do, I like to be involved with earlier. I just feel that, certainly from an acting point of view, it’s easier to do my job, if I’m included in what the intentions are, for why people are doing what they’re doing, especially with a director.
I get to play a great character while working with great actors and great directors on a great show.
I auditioned for Ted Bundy and the director Matthew Bright and we really hit it off. He cast me as Bundy’s girlfriend.
Directors are not worried about casting beautiful women, but they are not sure that they want to cast great-looking men. My looks have prevented people from seeing my work.
I think we all have limitations, as directors. I don’t care what the budget is, it’s probably never enough money and never enough time. You figure it out. Sometimes the limitations bring more creativity.
When I work, I work very hard. So I look to work with people who have that level of dedication. And I depend on that from everyone. From the director to my crews that I work with.
When you’re acting, you’re subjective; when you’re a director, you’re more objective.You’re kind of watching from the outside and helping others, and therefore I learn my mistakes through others, and also my assets through others.
In the re-creation of combat situations, and this is coming from a director who’s never been in one, being mindful of what these veterans have actually gone through, you find that the biggest concern is that you don’t look at war as a geopolitical endeavor.
I don’t like actors who try to talk directors into making their part bigger and that’s really lame.
All the actors I’ve worked with as a director over the years I really love and I thought they were all right for the part.
Ever director has at least 10 bad films in them.
That was okay [ working with George Clooney]. One of these days I’ll work with a good director.
Some months after [Keith Alexander] made that statement [Edward Snowden cause grave and irrevocable harm to the nation], the new director of the NSA, Michael Rogers, said that, in fact, he doesn’t see the sky falling. It’s not so serious after all.
As a first-time director in America, I feel I’ve been very fortunate.
Directors didn’t know what to do with me in college. I didn’t really sound like a belter. I didn’t look like a soprano. But in New York, I was in the right place at the right time, where my unusualness fit the bill.
The contemporary Japanese directors who are well-known in the West – say, Kiyoshi Kurosawa, Takeshi Kitano, Naomi Kawase – are mostly unknown to Japanese, particularly of the younger generation.
Im so lucky to have the opportunity to work with some directors and some actors I wouldnt have dared to think I would work with one day.
The director is the channel through which a motion picture reaches the screen.
As a film director I like to have the actors create their own close-ups. It’s an older style of filmmaking.
Spoilers are cowardly. They’re just people who want to anesthetize themselves against the tension and the experience that the director and the artist have set up. If you go in there knowing what’s going to happen, it’s like reading the last page of the book. It’s just cowardly.
I would love to work with Cameron Crowe; he’s definitely one of my favorite directors.
We [Elbow] have had some luck with media syncs in film and on TV. We’d love to do a soundtrack with a really cool director.
You’ve got to remember that improvisers are writers and actors and directors all simultaneously. That’s what’s happening in real time because you’re writing on your feet, and you are acting out the words and you are directing what the staging is. You’re deciding what staging is.
Becoming artistic directors is an enormous responsibility and not one that we take lightly.
The director’s job is full of all sorts of annoyances and details – like how many cars are on the street. Ugh. I don’t want it. I like my gig. And I feel that for the next 30 years or so I can keep learning more about it.
I am lucky, that is all. Lucky because there are a lot of people – producers, directors, people who buy tickets – who put confidence in me.
The secret of success in cinema lies in not just being talented but showcasing your talent to the audience. And, that happens only when you get the right films and directors.
As a director, you have to understand what is happening – if I don’t understand it, you can’t make changes.
When I was the NIH director, I often expressed envy of institute directors: they had the money and ran the scientific programmes.
I think the dictator director is based upon stories from the past. I don’t think anyone would put up with it now. There are a lot of people on a film set with egos. So, to be completely authoritarian, you’d probably have to have a reputation like Kurosowa or somebody to get away with it.
I’m not one of these directors, so far, that wants to have a whole separate director’s cut of these things. So far they’ve turned out to be kind of the length that they wanted to be.
When I think about directing a film, the thing that stops me short is wondering if I’m a natural at it the way I think you, and PTA, and Fincher are born directors. Maybe some people’s talent is in understanding the ways that film communicates, without dialogue, without plot.
I went to meet Joe Johnston, the director, and he’s charming. I’ve been very lucky. Most of the directors I’ve worked with are charming. But Joe’s a particularly charming man, and he showed me lots of designs and, rather memorably, welcomed me to the Marvel Universe.
Friends who are directors like Jim Mangold or the Wachowskis or Zack Snyder – who, whether they know or not – have really left a mark on who I am as a director.
We all like indie directors – heck, I even married one… but we’re divorced now.
When I came to the industry, many directors like Krishna Vamsi and Puri Jagannath had encouraged me a lot. Krishna Vamsi is my mentor, and I admire him. That’s why I give chances to new directors.
I think directing in a team is a really good idea because it stops the cult of the director as God straight away, and also you’re discussing things on set so it opens it out to everyone and it becomes a totally collaborative thing. And you have someone who supports you when you’re feeling a bit insecure.
If it were up to the executives, they probably wouldn’t have directors at all.
The thing I love about working with first-time directors is that it’s always quite shocking how little difference there is between them and directors who’ve been directing all their lives.
As an actor, when you walk into a room to audition, you get five minutes with a casting director, who doesn’t even look at you, most of the time.
Having a director who is also an actor makes for that very relaxed way of working and it’s empowering.
Michael Winterbottom is one of the great directors of this century.
As a director you want to have actors, not only surpassing themselves, but also going somewhere, going different places.
Directors and producers were afraid of a Dumont actor while at the same time they admired him.
There are a few directors as a young person where I was kind of like, ‘Well, these are a sure bet.’ The Coens, Paul Thomas Anderson, Wes Anderson.
I think I’m an extremely conscientious producer and now equally as a director and it gives me the opportunity to look at the entire movie and really allow the movie to be the creative vision of the actors, the writer and myself, because I’m in charge of it from a producer and a director point of view.
God may allow us at times to hit rock bottom, to show us He’s the rock-at the bottom.
Some directors are really strong on action, manhandling you around the set; others are very focused on setting up the camera shots and practically ignore you. You have to get used to introverts, extroverts, directors who clown around for the crew, and the odd one who’s monosyllabic.
I knew that I always wanted to be a filmmaker, an actor, a writer and a director, that was always my plan.
I’ve had a couple opportunities where I’ve been on the other side of the audition process as a director.
Interestingly, my first director’s cut was an hour and forty-one minutes. Then, the studio actually wanted to add more to the story, so we went all the way up to an hour and forty-seven minutes. After that, I made some additional cuts and now we are where we are.
It’s an important thing to have a relationship with the director, and have it be a positive one.
What you realize is that a lot of actors want to be directed. They’re there to do the best job they can for the director. They have a lot of questions, and your job is to have answers.
Tarkovsky for me is the greatest [director], the one who invented a new language, true to the nature of film, as it captures life as a reflection, life as a dream.
You have to have the essential pleasure of making a movie. It’s such a huge factor and adventure for a director because you really are the leader and the captain.
Larry Kasdan is a great director.
When I was in college, my brother, B.R. Chopra, who is everything to me, was a director in Bombay. He taught me filmmaking. What I am today is because of him.
Stephen Daldry would be a director that I would love to work with as well as Peter Jackson, Tim Burton, and I’m very lucky to have worked with Isabel Coixet, who is also one of my favourite directors.
The biggest thing I learned is directors don’t make a lot of money on a movie.
I’m not the kind of actress who asks a lot of questions of my directors unless it’s something I really need to know.
Picking projects, it’s always director first and then script. Those two things are pretty much head-to-head.
I love being on sets with very seasoned directors as well as very new directors. Every time is a discovery process. You learn something new every time.
Film buffs who don’t live in Hollywood have a fantasy about what it’s like to be a director. Movies and the people who make movies have such glamour associated with them. But the truth is, it’s not like that. It’s very different. It’s hard work.
I got offered to do Ben 10. Sue Blu was the [voice] director of that, and I had worked with her – I think she was on Transformers as well. And she was so great.
I read the books the day before I had met with the director Catherine Hardwicke. The first I heard of it was my agent called and said, ‘Do you want to be in a vampire movie?’ and I said ‘No.’ I thought it was like a zombie, blood-and-guts, vampire movie.
When I decided I wanted to be an actor, I said I wanted to work with quality actors and directors.
In the old days, before there was such a thing as film schools, directors learned the camera by watching other directors, and learning from their own dailies, and listening to the cameraman, and seeing what would work. Some of those guys could cut their movies in their head.
My kind of director is an actor-director who writes.
Assumptions are the termites of relationships.
But a writer’s contribution is literary and a film is not literary. When you take that stuff off the page, and cast the people who are going to fit into those roles, that’s what being a director is.
When actors give their input, it can be very ego-driven, and directors are scared of that.
When you’re really working well with a director then you can be as outrageous as you like and so can he. And there’s no worry about it.
Your director is your everything and you devote yourself to them and you want to help create their vision.
Carbon trading engages finance directors. It takes the issue of energy efficiency right to the top of the company.
All these directors, and I would include the Coen brothers and Quentin, have a very unique vision of what they want. They listen to ideas and make people feel like everyone is making the film.
I understood that I was not the best director in the world nor the worst director in the world. I realized that there is a very mysterious element to what works and what doesn’t work in the theater. And it’s good to know that from the beginning.
When I was nine years old I use to copy ( not trace ) the covers of the Donald Duck comics. Many years later I became a close friend of Jack Hannah, the director of the Donald Duck film shorts.
When I came out here, my manager thought that casting directors might think I’m a girl, and when I did Threat Matrix, they thought Jamie was a little light.
If you have a vision or if you believe the director has a vision, then at least you’ve got something to talk about, something to try and head to and I think that’s mandatory for every director to have to do a good job.
I love so many directors. I love David O. Russell. I love David Fincher, I love Alexander Payne and Jane Campion and my aunt. Spike Jonze. There are just so many amazing directors.
Music is where I have the most creative freedom, but I love producing. To me, that’s kind of where all the action is. You get a chance to have your hands in every aspect of a film. From picking a director, sometimes picking a writer, to the actors, the wardrobe, set design, editing, music, and marketing.
When you’re making a television show, it’s about the story and arc of the show rather than any particular episode or director.
I don’t know what to expect out of my films. My first two films were with extremely talented directors, and they didn’t work. And my next two films were with newcomers, and they worked well. So I’ve stopped expecting anything from my movies.
I’m always in awe of directors because they’re just holding so much stuff in the air. They’ve got so many decisions that they need to be making and they have to have the complete overall look of what the piece of artwork is.
Whenever I’m offered something, I always read the script and meet the director. I still appreciate just being considered.
I loved cinema while growing up and, for the longest time, wanted to be a director.
When I came to England, the first director I met was Charles Sturridge, who told me, ‘You speak like somebody out of the 1950s.
My sole inspiration is a telephone call from a director.
Where am I? Who am I? How did I come to be here? What is this thing called the world? How did I come into the world? Why was I not consulted? And If I am compelled to take part in it, where is the director? I want to see him.
I think every director has a different methodology.
The process always starts with detailed conversations with the director, followed by a spotting session (deciding where the music goes and doesn’t go in the film, and what the music should be saying or not saying) in each scene. This is followed by sending the director demos of each cue for feedback.
As a director, I’ve been able to combine with what I’ve learned as an actor and as a producer: it melds quite nicely into what I feel like I should have been doing all along.
No English director would’ve cast me as an officer, I promise you. Not one.
I think audiences, producers and directors included, develop crushes on actors (actresses in particular) and then lose interest and move on to the next one.
I’m not interested in making movies only with female protagonists. I think it’s ridiculous to think that a female director can’t direct men. That makes no sense to me.
The truth is that filmmaking is not really an actor’s medium; it’s really a director’s medium, so all I can really control is the character that I’m playing. So I try to look for characters that are interesting and engaging and different than what I’ve done before and hopefully it becomes a good movie.
I guess if there’s one thing that might surprise people about me, it’s that I’m very obedient. I’m kind of like a dog. I look at acting as kind of a service industry. You’re there to serve the writer and the director. I don’t really look at it as an act of self-expression, like I’m going to say what’s on my mind.
There are casting directors with lots of imagination, but also some with not as much imagination.
I didn’t just see myself as a film director here [in Life And Nothing More], but also as an observer of people who had been condemned to death.
If there’s a criteria that really gets me interested in a work besides any type of personal interaction with the theme, it’s if I feel like this is the right piece of work for that director at that moment in their career.
I’m not imprisoned in any one medium. In films I use techniques that are not necessarily what other directors attempt. When I write novels I also use techniques which can run counter to those that a novelist would use.
Everything starts with writing. And then to support your vision, your ideas, your philosophy, your jokes, whatever, you’ve gotta perform them and/or direct them, or sometimes just produce them.
I’m just trying to find a good project. Work with a good director, someone I really admire. Find a good role.
You know, as director of the CIA, I got an awful lot of intelligence about all the horrible things that could go on across the world.
I always believe that Kar-Wai has a complete script: he just doesn’t show it to us. He wants us to experience and explore the character. He gives you a lot of space, and you know every time will be a very long journey. You just live in the character, and that’s very different from other directors.
I find that all great directors, and I would include Ben Affleck and Clint Eastwood in that, they have great confidence. And with great confidence comes great freedom for the actor.
On the one hand, young theatre directors were coming to television theatre, because they wanted to get closer to the cinema, despite having studied and worked for the theatre.
An actor really suffers when the director isn’t prepared because you start running out of time for the shoot and then have to do it fast.
Learn how to draw. It’s the basis of what we [animation directors] do. Keep a sketchbook. Try making a very simple little film. Try and tell a story clearly and entertainingly. Study the way people move and animate move. Observe all you can, and try and capture that simply in a few lines on paper.
There are some directors I hear about in nighttime or some I used to work with who walk around like gods.
I am open to working with new directors as long as the script excites me.
I was fortunate enough to work under directors who were, most of them, brilliant, emotional men.
I always thought it would be very funny if I was a blind film director.
I think the financial restraint really pushes me as a director to be more creative with the way I shoot the film.
The director of the FBI has been visiting Silicon Valley companies asking them to build back doors so that it can spy on what is being said online. The Department of Commerce is going after piracy. At home, the American government wants anything but Internet freedom.
When I feel like being a director, I write a novel.
I believe the common denominator of the Universe is not harmony, but chaos, hostility and murder.
You could almost write an opera about the selection of music directors for orchestras. The intrigues are really interesting, and then, at the end, the results are completely unexpected.
The only entry level position on a movie is director.
Choosing a Board of Directors based on race and gender is a lousy way to run a company.
What’s interesting is that producers, directors and writers tend to typecast me in terms of whatever movie they’ve seen me in most recently.
I was in good shape from Divergent. Damien Chazelle, the director of Whiplash told me, ‘Stop Working Out! Don’t go outside!’ He wanted me pale and doughy. This is the first movie where I shut myself off from the world. It was, by far, the hardest thing I’ve ever done.
I like to work with talented people, I must say that. That’s my weakness. I really like to work with good directors. That doesn’t mean I don’t like to work with starting up young directors, that’s fun also.
One of the problems of a director on the set is that we become overwhelmed by all the factors and threads of production, that sometimes we can’t focus on our main job, which is steering the performances to create the whole film.
The director, MoisГ©s Kaufman, just received the national medal of the arts from President [Barack] Obama . He wrote and directed The Laramie Project and he has directed several Pulitzer prize-winning plays. He’s a pretty profound director in the theater.
My philosophy is, ‘Show up, shut up, and do your job,’ and if you do it to the satisfaction of your director and the public, you’re likely to be able to do it again.
Certain directors are known for a certain kind of beauty; it becomes their signature.
When you are the avatar for the writer/director, a lot of times, I just trusted him. If he had a choice, even if it wasn’t necessarily what was my first impulse, I was like, “Billy Ray has been living with this for two years before I even came on board, so I’m going with him.”
Being a conductor is kind of a hybrid profession because most fundamentally, it is being someone who is a coach, a trainer, an editor, a director.
When you’re in sync with the director, on the type of movie you want to make, the arc of the characters, how the characters intertwine and interact, plotlines and story, and things like that, it really makes a difference.
I think you’re peripatetic when you work in this industry. My husband and I are assuming the role of co-artistic directors at the Sydney Theatre Company in 2008. But as long as the film industry will have me, I will have it.
I’ve always had good relationships with directors. I’m one of those people where, if there’s a good idea coming from the sound guy, I’ll take it. Filmmaking is a collaborative effort, whether it’s a first-time director or it’s Mike Nichols. I think that’s the standard that the great ones set.
I was thrown in the deep end at 18 when I got cast in a movie that I didn’t audition for. The director just sort of found me and put me in a film, so the decision was really made for me.
Scripts are what matter. If you get the foundations right and then you get the right ingredients on top, you stand a shot… but if you get those foundations wrong, then you absolutely don’t stand a shot. It’s very rare-almost never-that a good film gets made from a bad screenplay.
As you follow the escapades or the journey of the hero through a story, it evokes some kind of emotion in the viewers. The director’s job is to make sure that the audience goes through the journey and has an emotional reaction.
If directors, actors and writers have the ability to drop their alpha-male egos, you will always get better work. In terms of my own demands, I actually want fewer lines. If I can lose a line and do it with my face, I’d rather do that.
I do like to work with young directors because it’s such a difficult business that I think after directors have been around a while sometimes, not always, but sometimes their passion gets siphoned off because they get hurt.
OK, the director makes the movie. But some movies can’t get made without someone like me in them.
My strangest auditioning experience was when I was reading for a TV show, and right when I started the audition, the casting director left the room and yelled at me from the hallway to keep reading.
I would consider doing any part as long as the script is good and the film has an interesting director.
I’ve never quite understood the idea of a “season.” Whenever an artistic director says to me, ‘I have this slot,’ I always start to feel we’re parking cars or something.
All of the directors I’ve worked with I have loved and would work with again. I have no favorites.
‘Ice Age’ felt like stage acting. You’d write a sequence, and sometimes you’d submit pages, but other times, I would actually perform it for the directors and producer in my office.
I think producers are more interested in backing concepts than directors and writers. I don’t think that’s the right way of making a decision about whether you’re going to back a film or not.
I’m a huge fan of the director, Alejandro GonzГЎlez IГ±ГЎrritu, and his work, and I knew he was going to be an amazing actor’s director, based on the performances that I saw in his movies.
There are directors who desire to be artistic. It is pathetic to compare the seriousness of their aim with the absurdity of their attainment.
When you have the Chief of Staff of the Republican National Committee and the political director of the Romney campaign, and their two companies get $150 million at the end of the campaign for the ‘fantastic’ get-out-the-vote program… some of this borders on RICO violations.
To me it’s like, every time I’m a director, like today, you’re the captain of the ship, so you better dress like it. You’re the host of the party.
[Director] Peter Wallerstein does great work rescuing sea life along the shores of LA, and I helped raise money for sanctuaries such as Chimp Haven, who are now taking in over two hundred medical lab chimps released from government-funded medical testing labs.
I’m in awe of directors like the Coen brothers who can shoot their script and edit it, and that’s the movie. They’re not discovering the movie in postproduction. They’re editing the script they shot.
As a director, my job is to protect. I protect scripts, actors, cameramen, designers.
I am half Puerto Rican, a quarter German and a quarter black. That was always a big issue for me – being mixed race – because casting directors tended to be very like, ‘OK, are you Hispanic for this role?’ ‘Or is she going to be African American?’
I guess I’m not jaded because I still believe that there are good films out there, and there are great directors, and there are great writers. It just takes a little bit more perseverance and a little bit more time to find [them].
I’m always trying to find something unique or a project that I can do something unique in. When the director has a vision for a piece that I’ve never heard before, and they can back that up with visuals and they talk a good game, I get really interested in the world that they’re trying to create.
The joy for me of television is the sort of family feeling of being involved with an ensemble – the cast and the crew and the director of photography and the guys in the camera truck – and you’re all coming together. There’s a great feeling when that is a successful unit, a successful family.
Hmm, can I be obvious and say there is probably a double standard for male vs. female directors? Sadly, I think that’s actually the case. And it probably stems from the fact that there are proportionately so many fewer women directors than men ones that each project is perhaps more closely scrutinized for its content.
I don’t have what German directors call ‘a concept’ – a solid, fixed sense of the pattern that you should impose on the given work. I always get the feeling that I am raking up the earth rather than laying down the concrete.
The quality of Korean actors is actually quite high. Their passion is overwhelming but not many platforms are available to cater to their creative needs. They’re thirsty for something new and I think that’s where I connect with them. They have vision. In certain sense many Korean actors have better vision than directors.
Musicians ought to reclaim some of the power in the houses of production. The opera houses are run either by managers or by stage directors, never by musicians.
As somebody who makes his living in the movie business and wants to contribute to it, I think that the best chance I have of doing that is just consistently working with great directors.
If you managed a baseball team, would you listen more closely to the team accountant or the director of player personnel?
You pick projects for the part, the director, and the script. I just want to do different, interesting stuff.
I’m very patient and always willing to try things but I have some resistance as well because I have my own vision. I have resistance sometimes because I see a director who’s freaking out and wants to have control and they sometimes anticipate about what I’m going to be doing or not.
We haven’t done enough work to encourage minorities to strive to make movies. Hollywood is a place full of white male directors – there are many good ones. We just haven’t nurtured our voices.
I will say that I’m going to take full credit for this. I knew Josh [Hutcherson] was going to be a star. One of the things you do, as a music video director, is spot talent. Th at’s one of my things. I don’t just do random people.
Most of the time I’ve worked with directors who write their own scripts. The story is more important to me than the part. The project of the film has always been more important to me.
A director is what a director wants to be. If you want to force something, you can fight to the death and maybe get fired, but it’s your job to help push things along.
Rejecting offers has not been easy for me, especially when the movies involve some of my favourite actors and directors.
I’m a person of the arts. I love the arts very, very, very much. And ah, I’m a musician, I’m a director, I’m a writer, I’m a composer, I’m a producer, and I love the medium. I love film very, very much. I think it’s the most expressive of all of the art mediums.
The lack of women directors is a sad fact of life. Kathryn Bigelows thrilling Best Director win may help turn things around.
I’m not a trained actor. I surrender to my directors, and they make me act.
My first soldier role was in ‘Flags of Our Fathers.’ Casting director Jay Binder saw that movie and was looking for soldiers for ‘Journey’s End,’ which led to ‘Generation Kill.’
I was the enemy of the major studio. I believed in one man – one film. I believed one man should make the film. And I believed the director should be that one man. One man should do it – I didn’t give a damn who. I just couldn’t accept art as a committee. I could only accept art as an extension of an individual.
I’ve always been a daddy’s girl, and that’s served me well in life; most of my directors have been male.
As a director who loves the camera you learn a lot.
I’ve always loved music videos – I used to make my own for bands like Pearl Jam. My favorite directors are Michel Gondry, Spike Jonze, and Patrick Daughters.
I don’t do rehearsal. Some directors prefer to do rehearsal – readings before the actual shooting – but I don’t like this process because I think there are certain things that are so spontaneous, and they cannot happen twice.
The core of a director is the person’s tastes in what elements go together and how they go together. It’s a puzzle.
The marvels of daily life are exciting; no movie director can arrange the unexpected that you find in the street.
The foreign-language Oscar is something that doesn’t go to the producer or the director; it goes to the country.
But for me, the challenge is how you turn a character into behavior. Once the director says ‘action’, you just try to live between those two worlds.
There’s the argument that you can relate to someone who’s completely unrelatable. In the way that a director shows you his imagination on a film, then I get to show you my imagination in a big dumb character.
I don’t think about the gender thing very much. But when I speak at schools, I’ve had female students say to me afterwards, “I never envisioned myself being a director, since I’ve never seen women do it.” But after seeing me, they can picture themselves directing, so maybe we’ll see more female directors.
I am blessed to have got a chance to work with directors like Anurag Kashyap, Vishal Bhardwaj, and Nikhil Advani at such an early age.
David Ayer is one of the best directors I’ve ever worked with. He’s a true man’s man.
Feeling unsure and lost is part of your path. Don’t avoid it. See what those feelings are showing you and use it.
Twelve years on sets watching directors, I’ve taken a bit from everybody and rejected a lot.
I think film is a director’s medium and the good filmmakers that I like tell the darker stories. Therefore, I’m always inclined to follow people like David Cronenberg.
I have very talented art directors in my agency who start out telling me, ‘Well, this is what the picture is… ‘ I ask, ‘Well, what’s the headline?’ and they say, ‘We haven’t done that yet, but it looks this way.’ But I’m still writing copy, almost every day.
I reached a point where I’d watched enough directors do the job that I felt I understood it. And it’s not that I’m a slow learner and it took me this long; I also was enjoying writing, and I still enjoy writing – I get tremendous satisfaction out of the writing end of it.
My mom and dad were actors when they were younger and had a horrible experience of it. My dad became a literary agent and my mom a casting director.
You stay with the foundation and then you just try different things because you don’t know how the director will cut it and you want to give him, what will work, and you want to give him some options, give yourself some options, discover some things when you start to play. That’s what we do; we get paid to play.
Children of Men is a solemn, haunting picture, but it’s also a thrilling one, partly because of the sheer bravado with which it’s made. It left me feeling more fortified than drained. [Director Alfonso] CuarГіn, the most openhearted of directors, prefers to give rather than take away.
Stoller is one of my favorite comedic directors – one of my favorite directors that I’ve worked with to date.
I’m an actor who’s accustomed to bringing a lot of stuff to the table, and you have to be ready because some of them will be accepted and some of them will be rejected. Then you need a generous, free, fearless, loving director like Tarantino to allow you to take those risks.
I never suffered from the absence of a father. On the contrary, as a child I was more inclined to see men as a disturbing factor. It made things difficult for me when I started working as a director.
It’s pretty clear to me that working as a director for hire agrees with me. I like it. The films that have come out of that, I personally like better than the ones that didn’t.
Actors can become very involved in a role, but for a director or producer, that’s your life for many years.
Well, in the theater, I think you’re actually more responsible for what is going on onstage as a director than you are in film.
I think the three Mexican directors that came before me did a very good job in Hollywood because they came in and started directing things like ‘Harry Potter.’
But if one could go back in time, I’d love to have been directed by Howard Hawks, who’s one of my great heroes. One of the greatest directors there ever was. He directed probably one of the greatest westerns of all time in ‘Rio Bravo’.
Many casting directors won’t hire aspiring actors because you might be burning some chick’s headshot under the table so she doesn’t get the part.
I don’t plan, because everything goes against my plans anyways. There’s absolutely no point in planning anything. I’m just enjoying the moment. I’m meeting with a whole lot of people – casting directors, directors, agents. I have things going on everywhere, but I have no solid plans.
There are so many elements that make a good film. You need a great director who’s driving it.
I love to tell stories and I love to work with directors and I think I write really visually, which I think directors like, and I love making movies, so I found something that I’m good at and I’m really happy doing.
My acting experience has been a benefit. What I learned from directors is how to listen to and talk with actors. I know how they think and what they need.
One final thing a director needs: The ability to say ‘I am wrong’ or ‘I was wrong.’ Not as easy as it sounds. But in many situations, these 3 words, honestly spoken, will save the day.
It’s so sad to me [see the director’s versions of films] because it shows how the filmmaker never got to make the film he had originally envisioned. You watch it and go, “Oh my god, he had to cut that scene! I can’t believe it.”
Every character I’ve ever played, I always try to take him right to the edge and not allow him to fall over, but directors have a tendency to pull me back a little bit.
Even if I loved the script, the director has to be right because it’s all about the filmmaker. It’s their vision. They’re the ones that go back into the editing room and reassemble the film.
Directors love to do music, they’ve been doing that all along.
Part of the problem is that many directors treat female characters too often as precious. Or they want to live in a fantasy world where they just do spinning hook kicks and knock out guys who are six foot four, and that doesn’t work either.
Tony Scott was one of the best directors Ive ever worked with, and I was devastated when I heard about his death. He was a great guy with great energy. But this is a difficult business, and peoples lives are sometimes difficult.
Actors are accustomed to doing exactly what the director or writer requests us to do, and rarely get involved in that part of the process.
I think that I’m a better speechwriter than my speechwriters. I know more about policies on any particular issue than my policy directors. And I’ll tell you right now that I’m gonna think I’m a better political director than my political director.
I don’t think many actors are the best judge of careers. I think generally we have good instincts about what we can do in terms of acting. And often they become directors, which I don’t want to be.
Also one of my heroes is Syd Mead, who designed the vehicles for the first Tron. So, there are so many beautiful things happening here. And working with Joe was great. He’s an architect, so I worked with other directors in between who were just about the action.
Some directors hand over portions of their movie to their head of department to the point where it’s like, “I’m not going to talk to you about the costumes, but I’m going to let you talk to the expert.” Rather than, “You want to talk stitching, let’s talk stitching. You want to talk grade of leather? Let’s.”
There are so few directors who are musical who appreciate music.
The attitude of the English towards English history reminds one a good deal of the attitude of a Hollywood director towards love.
Nine times out of ten, I’m trying to meet someone else’s expectations, whether it’s the director or the writer or the animator, when I go back in to re-record a line. I’m the icing on the cake, but the cake is the thing. I’m really just a hood ornament on a very solid vehicle.
Some friends of mine who are actors feel directing shuts them down and kills all their impulses, but the worst thing for me is if I feel a director hasn’t noticed.
But it’s cool working with female directors because I’m a girl, so you do relate to them more. You can talk to them about other stuff like clothes and all that.
As a director and an actor, I encourage improvisation but in character and in the moment of what it is.
If I’m going to produce something, it’s going to be with somebody I think is special. Once I go beyond a handful of directors, like Scorsese, there are very few I want to work with.
I have never watched property programmes. I watch Property Ladder, because I feel it’s very rude for a director to work very hard on a programme and you can’t be bothered to even watch it. So I do watch it, but I have to turn away when I’m on screen. It’s quite unpleasant seeing myself up there.
I was 17, certainly by the time I was 19, I knew that show business was where I was going to end up, and I had my sights on being a director.
At school, I decided I wanted to be a director and then I went out and spent the rest of my adult life trying to be a director. It was really clear to me. So in that sense I was very lucky.
I’m not living the life I thought I would lead, but it does have meaning, purpose. There is love… there is joy… there is laughter.
It’s usually the exact same three things which are, the Scripts, the Director and the Role those are the three things I look for and really any two of them, If I get two of them that’s usually enough, but definitely those are the things I look for.
I randomly went to a casting session in my hometown in North Carolina, and the casting director introduced me to my manager. I really lucked into it!
There are directors, and there are authors. I think I am more of an author than a director.
Truthfully, most directors don’t direct actors. Every actor is different, so when you’re asked, “How do you approach an actor?,” it depends on the actor. With some, you do nothing. With some, you’re very specific.
In order to make a movie it isn’t enough to have a script, it isn’t enough to have a director, it isn’t enough to have a male actor and a female actor, it isn’t enough to have financing. You have to have them all at the same instant.
My philosophy is that to be a director you cannot be subject to anyone, even the head of the studio. I threatened to quit each time I didn’t get my way, but no one ever let me walk out.
If I am creating the shots from scratch I may have to spend more time holding the directors hand and therefore have less time to finesse the shot or the lighting etc. but it really all depends on the project. Some films benefit from their spontaneity.
I’m very fortunate to have the privilege of working with directors like Bill Condon and Paul Thomas Anderson, who I think is one of the greatest filmmakers of our time.
I was going to say we saw Secretary [Hillary] Clinton reported that she believes that she would’ve won the election but for the interference of the FBI director James Comey.
It’s only human and natural that an actor should see the film in terms of his own part, but I, as a director, have to see the film as a whole. He must therefore collaborate selflessly, totally.
Most directors have little lists in their heads of people they really want to work with.
Why would people have confidence in a female director when there are so few?
I love being on set, because I’ve basically grown up on a set. And now I love to contribute as a director and help steer the ship, if you will.
I admire directors so much, I find them incredible: they manage such a huge number of people of different characters, think of the money involved.
When I left my parents’ home when I was 19, I went to the University of Florida, and within 24 hours was in the mental health department. And within 20 minutes, I was being told by the director there that they didn’t have what I needed there.
I love working with actors. If you cast the right person in the right part at the right time, they make you look like a better writer and director than you really are.
In acting, you are fulfilled if you give justice to your role… if you are able to do a credible performance and touch the audience. Same with directing. If you are able to draw out the best from your actors, then you fulfill your job as a director.
I don’t have a favorite director just like I don’t have a favorite color or I don’t have a favorite food. I like everything.
I look for good directors mainly because if you do enough of movies where there’s not a real creative vision behind it, you start to turn into a robot and you want to jump off a bridge.
I’ve turned down jobs because I’ve said, ‘Honestly, I can’t find my way in. I can’t do it. I love you, as a director. I think the script is good. You deserve better than I think I can do.’
I’d like to work with any actress from whom I can learn-one who has had many experiences with many directors and is willing to share some of her knowledge with me.
Some directors are very free and some directors are very specific. It seemed like doing a play.
I’m like a movie director, so wherever I feel that I need to go over this type of beat, that’s what I’m going to do, that’s where I’m going to go.
Asked by reporters about his upcoming marriage to a forty-two-year-old
woman, director Roman Polanski told reporters, `The way I look at it,
she’s the equivalent of three fourteen-year-olds.’
woman, director Roman Polanski told reporters, `The way I look at it,
she’s the equivalent of three fourteen-year-olds.’
Clark Gregg and I are around the same age. He has been an actor and is a writer. But with a first-time director, there is a way to talk about things they might not know. Because Clark was an actor, though, he knew more about the process than most first-time directors.
TV showrunners have become known entities to people who watch television in the way that movie directors have been known to filmgoers for a long time. When I started out as a writer and producer in television, I never had the slightest expectation that fame would be part of the job.
I’m so consistent that my director’s cuts are usually 20-25 minutes longer than the released version of the movies.
When you can find a strong character and a director that does want to protect the integrity of all characters, female and male, then you have a good deal.
I don’t think the written word is important in movies anymore and the really great movies are done by great directors who in many cases write their own scripts. I think it’s gotten to be more of a visual thing than an audible thing.
Jamie Foley – he’s a very different energy to [director] Sam [Taylor-Johnson]. The whole experience was actually quite different.
A good actor’s director, first of all, is prepared, so there’s not an exorbitant amount of wasted footage.
I always wanted to create a site that was sports and pop culture. 30 for 30 had a big impact because I loved how that was about finding, empowering and working with these incredible directors, and I thought the same thing could work for writers.
I want make more records with my sister. I want to go on the road. I want to tour around the world. I want to continue to make great films and work with incredible directors that I respect and look up to.
When I was to come to Washington the first time as Music Director of the Boston Symphony, Mrs. Johnson phoned us to find out if they could give us a party and who we would like to meet.
The director’s job should give you a sense of music without drawing attention to itself.
Every actress has a line she’ll draw, where she’ll say, ‘This I will do and this I won’t.’ For me, everything has to be important to the story and the director has to be able to tell me why.
Every film you work on is different, and that’s part of what it’s like for anybody who works on a film, is to learn how to work with others. Learn from top to bottom. Actors have to learn how to work with the director and the director has to learn how to work with actors, and that’s not just those two departments.
I’m a huge Hayao Miyazaki fan. He might be my favorite director of all time – the beauty that he sees in the world and the attention to detail. I try and focus on that while making music: trying to use as many real instruments as possible, have it feel as tactile and tangible as possible.
The thing I love about acting is that it’s got nothing to do with me; it’s about bringing forth a director’s vision. It’s like a release. I’m glad it’s come back into my life.
That’s why I never became a director. I never had patience with people.
I definitely divide my life into decades. Almost every ten years, something in my work life has changed. My twenties were my journalistic phase, then there was my screenwriting phase, then I became a director, then I started doing some plays.
If a director, I believe, has vision and knows so clearly what they want, then you can have a film that can perform. Whereas you can have done 50 movies, but if you’re unsure this time, your movie may not turn out.
The only reason I took up small roles in big banner films was in the hope to get the attention of other directors.
How people are around a director, it really does affect everything, every detail of the life of the movie.
Fifty-percent of the director’s job honestly is casting the movie well.
I think, as written, ‘Assassins’ simply acknowledges the very human need to be acknowledged. As director, I’ve got to put aside any particular biases or prejudices that, as a moral human being, this is not an appropriate or acceptable way to get what you want.
When Shana Alexander interviewed me for Life magazine in 1952, she gave up after 4,000. At one time or another, I’ve worked for every studio in Hollywood, for almost every director with most of the actors and actresses.
I have an image of Shanghai, which is quite different from other directors, I think. The story of Shanghai should happen in back alleys.
I don’t know what it is, exactly, but there’s a negative drag on film sets after the second week or so, a mutinous vibe because the infinite capacities of the directors and everybody else become quite finite and everybody’s under the gun and it becomes work.
The importance of the assistant director cannot be overemphasized.
I’ve constantly done my best to get the best material I can get with the best directors I can get to direct me.
There aren’t many American directors here trying to direct a Japanese yakuza film. When you combine that with the fact that I don’t speak much Japanese and this was an independent film I was financing myself – people were curious about what I was doing.
When Chris Nolan is your director you are like, “I trust that, I’m wrong.”
Hillary Clinton ripped FBI Director Louis Freeh on Wednesday. She said she can’t understand how FBI documents could vanish and then mysteriously reappear. She has to say that or she’d be thrown out of the Magician’s Society.
We need more points of view from women and we need more support for female directors and writers in the industry.
I was hoping to catch [Vladimir] Putin in a lie – like what happened to Director of National Intelligence James Clapper [in his congressional testimony]. So I asked Putin basically the same questions about Russian mass surveillance. I knew he’s doing the same thing, but he denied it.
The best camera, is the one that you have with you!
There’s nothing like sitting in a completely quiet room, and then the strings start up. It’s like when you go to the cinema – the first two or three minutes of any film are amazing. Because the screen is so big. The scale. Directors can pretty much do anything for those first few minutes.
It’s really rare for film directors to be that interested in things other than themselves.
I like the anonymity that directors can have about their films.
Be yourself. Forget about whether you are male or female and just work hard to become a director who truly knows her craft and the direction she wants the film to go. People respect a director for her work regardless of her gender.
My interests were aroused, and my faith in the cliches of the subject destroyed, as so often with other subjects, by the discussions with my friend, Aaron Director.
A lot of directors in my experience are very receptive. They see what you do first, and then they want to find a place to put the camera, and they tweak you here and there.
Jim Brooks is a very powerful director and it was a lot of intense work.
That is a big turn-on for me, a director who knows what he’s doing and what he wants, and knows when he’s gotten what he wants.
A lot of directors say, ‘Do whatever you want, and I’ll just change it on set.’ But I love being involved in every part of production. It’s very exciting. It’s like an empire of creation: Everybody is working so hard to respect a vision and an idea, and it’s very weird and inspiring at the same time.
I ask a million questions, and I insist on having answers. I think that is what we have to do. I have to know what the director wants. Some are very much in their head, and I need to force it out of them. I just can’t play around for eight hours and see if something happens.
I really just want to work with good directors and learn as much as I possibly can.
The best films are because of nobody but the director.
I just started to want to be more hands on, and again, because of the nature of this job which was to evaluate the writing apart from the production, I got clear on what a director did and I became interested in directing, so I started to do that in the late 80s.
There are a few directors around who I have some excitement about spending my $7 at the theatre watching their movies.
When I was in college, I had only one ambition that one day I would like to be a director.
I’m not in a position where I get to pick and choose roles. I usually go on auditions in long lines and embarrass myself in front of casting directors, and with a lump in my throat and my ears burning, I walk past reception and smirking actors as I go to the parking garage and go back on the highway.
I’d worked with directors who wouldn’t collaborate. Then I’ve also worked with directors who didn’t really know what they wanted. I knew I didn’t want to be either one of those guys – or girls.
I dread to be compared to all these directors who have a lot of spontaneous emoting and swearing in their films – that is death; it’s a cul-de-sac. It doesn’t lift the material at all. It’s just a cliched reproduction of what we think is normal behaviour.
The fun for me is knowing what the other person is saying and what my character would be thinking at that time. On the stage you get the chance to do all that, to analyze and build a part, to react, to contribute something no one else can-not the author, not even the director.
A director shouldn’t get in the way of the movie, the story should.
You realize as a director that when you are cutting a film, you want to have alternatives. You need color and choices. You don’t want four takes that are identical.
I love producing. My dream as a producer is to be able to build a company that can be a safe haven for artists, for directors and for writers and actors to do what they do best and let them have final edit. I’d like to build something to that effect.
I’ve never worked in the U.K. television industry, but my guess it that it’s a tough world for directors.
My Mom is a ballet director, so I had this idea in me that classical training is the best foundation for anything you do, so I wanted to get a classical background and voice.
The thing that fascinates me is that the way I came to film and television is extinct. Then there were gatekeepers, it was prohibitively expensive to make a film, to be a director you had to be an entrepreneur to raise money.
When I’m filming a kill scene [as a director], I just get happier and happier as we chop up body parts.
I’ve wanted to make movies for so long. I learned most of what I know from director commentaries and behind the scenes featurettes and criterions.
A disk unbeknownst to the director can go to the producer in another city or in another office and that producer can edit behind the director’s back much easier than in the old days. Since these dailies are now put on videotape, more kinds of people have access to dailies.
In France, I have lots of opportunities. Maybe now I’ll be offered films in America. It’s the encounter, with the director and the story that counts.
I think that’s what makes David Ayer really interesting. He likes to make a tough-y movie, but actually he’s a character director. He’s fascinated by the actual people who decide to have these jobs and the way it affects their lives.
[Warren’s Beatty] first film being with this very important director [Elia Kazan], I think we related on that in a big way. And I just was genuinely curious about his experiences in film, and about the people he knew.
I’m probably one of the worst actors as far as preparation goes, because I actually don’t prepare. I find it easier to read the script and whatever hits me in my stomach, like deep down, I just go with it. And the director kind of molds me whether to go right or left with it.
What I’m looking for is the variety of choices and the opportunity to work with great directors – that’s what I’m looking for.
The director I had most involvement with was Alex Rockwell. He gave me a lot of responsibility as an actor.
Insider trading tells everybody at precisely the wrong time that everything is rigged, and only people who have a billion dollars and have access to and are best friends with people who are on boards of directors of major companies – they’re the only ones who can make a true buck.
Sometimes the person who is the most logical is the person whom we call insane.
One of the things that’s awesome about being an actor is that you get to do stories, live lives and have experiences that you never could have even conceived of, and that’s because you’re living in another writer’s imagination and another director’s imagination.
How do I let the director know how obsessed I am and willing to do anything for the movie? Like, I wanted to write this one director a letter, so I wrote him a handwritten note. But then I was like, ‘How many people are writing this guy handwritten letters? Is it going to seem cheesy? What do I do?’
I’ve now been doing this for ten years, and I actually got to skip a stage of going to casting directors, and now I meet with the directors, either for lunch or an audition room, and I still read sides; you’re never going to get around that, but I’m not the best person to go on an audition.
I have half a dozen designers who work for me, they ‘realise’ most of the design work, and I act as the design director and the main point of client contact on each project.
I do think that’s so much a part of what being a director is – in working with actors – to really try and be sensitive to what each actor needs to get to where he wants to be.
I’ve worked with Steven Spielberg three times. I’m proud to say that I’m one of those actors that continues to get hired by the same directors.
Some directors are comfortable with music. Some feel comfortable discussing and talking and operating in a musical language. Others don’t engage so much.
What goes on between a father and a son, which is usually such a private matter, is that they are able to be honest with each other, and be honest with me, as a director. Its just remarkable.
Not many French producers work the American way. In France, the director decides everything, he has final cut. I’m trying to do things differently, without the Luc Besson solution.
I think all directors should be animators.
I love supporting emerging voices, and new writers and directors. I love engaging an audience in a way that doesn’t have to involve me, personally, and yet still generates an experience for groups of people.
Dodge v. Ford still stands for the legal principal that managers and directors have a legal duty to put the shareholders’ interests above all others and no legal authority to serve any other interests – what has come to be known as “the best interests of the corporation” principal.
Back when I was looking for my next step and was researching Gannett, I was interested in who was leading the various businesses within the organization: Are there a lot of women and minorities in important, operational roles, senior management and the board of directors?
Be extremely subtle, even to the point of formlessness. Be extremely mysterious, even to the point of soundlessness. Thereby you can be the director of the opponent’s fate.
I’d love to be a huge television director. I definitely want to do that. I could imagine me going more and more into that, as I age.
A successful director is someone who has the combination of skills that you can learn, but there’s also an intuitive sensibility that they bring to it, that they’ve developed on their own and that is singular to them.
Ten years ago, it was really difficult for a young actress to walk onto a set and disagree with the director and having that be OK and have a conversation about it and everyone be cool with it.
Having an investor on your board of directors who is naive about public markets or finds them complex or scary is non-optimal.
Tell me one director who will go on record to say that I don’t get along with them? I get along famously with all my directors because I am what I am today because of them.
I love Malcolm Lee and jumped on the opportunity to work with him as a director.
And as a director, you make 1,000 decisions a day, mostly binary decisions: yes or no, this one or that one, the red one or the blue one, faster or slower. And it’s the culmination of those decisions that define the tone of the film and whether or not it moves people.
‘Kaaka Muttai’ has gone places. It’s a great feeling. There is respect from family and friends. The film has travelled to international festivals, and I was able to meet big directors.
I love improv. ‘Crazy, Stupid, Love,’ the script was really great, but the directors were open to letting you try different things. And that felt like a muscle I hadn’t exercised in a really long time.
I hope I don’t just do the exact same thing my whole life. I also feel like it’s really hard to make comedy. It’s almost impossible for comedy filmmakers and directors to stay relevant as they get older.
I miss working with great actors, working with great directors.
There are so many movies like this, where you thought you were smarter than the screen but the director was smarter than you, of course he’s the one, of course it was a dream, of course she’s dead, of course, it’s hidden right there, of course it’s the truth and you in your seat have failed to notice in the dark.
I worked for a lot of directors.
I love test screenings. Some directors don’t, I know. But I love it. I think it’s because I come from the theatre and in the theatre, previews are where you really have to listen to the audience and really feel how they’re responding. I found our test screenings incredibly useful.
A lot of actors aren’t particularly good directors. And they’re not particularly good with other actors. That’s kind of a fallacy.
You come up with a story line, you hire the writer, the director, the stars, the set designer.
There are many directors in the middle range who’ve made mostly successful pictures, and then there are a few great directors who’ve had some successes and some failures. I suppose my life would be smoother if I wasn’t almost totally enamored of the latter category.
Yeah, I mean the material, directors, the other cast, and if you think you can do something with the character then you do it and go from there. I am looking forward to doing some smaller movies.
I studied Hitchcock and Josef von Sternberg under Richard Dillard at Hollins, and that year under his tutelage just completely rewired my brain. Both directors combine moral seriousness with great artistry and, certainly in Hitchcock’s case, an enormous respect for plot, for its power to enthrall and delight.
When tradition is thought to state the way things really are, it becomes the director and judge of our lives; we are, in effect, imprisoned by it. On the other hand, tradition can be understood as a pointer to that which is beyond tradition: the sacred. Then it functions not as a prison but as a lens.
I don’t understand why there aren’t more powerful female directors. I don’t have the answers, but I hope that things may start to shift and that studios will employ more women to handle strong and interesting material.
My first motion capture game was with Sony – NBA: The Life. It was very ahead of its time. Brandon Akiaten, he was the writer and director. He had a real vision of what this game was meant to be; it was a basketball game where I was the Jerry Maguire sports agent type guy. And it was great!
In the age of activism that is clearly not going away, it would seem that some form of engagement from directors with shareholders – rather than directors simply taking their cues from management – would go a long way toward helping boards work on behalf of all shareholders rather just the most vocal.
I’m pretty much a character-driven film director and my movies are smaller. I don’t do a lot of coverage. I use lots of master shots.
So many directors are solely focused on their own success in Hollywood and multimillion dollar budgets and deals.
I feel like I’ve had a really great intense relationship with every single Director I’ve ever worked with. I can’t say there’s one that hasn’t been deep and profound in its own way.
I had one well known director who kept saying, “Now Clint, this is what ….” And I’d say, “I know. I read the script. I’m the one who cast you as the director. Let me show you and you’ll correct me if I’m wrong.”
I’ve enjoyed my time in the game, whether it be managing Luton in the top flight, taking Spurs to Wembley or, as director of football, pinpointing players such as Jermain Defoe, Paul Robinson and Robbie Keane with real sell-on value.
I didn’t want a guru or a kung fu master or a spiritual director. I didn’t want to become a sorcerer or learn the zen of archery or meditate or align my chakras or uncover mast incarnations…I was after something else entirely, but it wasn’t in the Yellow Pages or anywhere else that I could discover.
If you’re a casting director, you’re going to be curious to see what Timothy Spall’s son is like. But when you get in the door, you have to have something to offer.
Is it ‘left’ to insist that presidents and CIA directors adhere to the law? I don’t think so. I think it’s American.
I’m so tired of hearing casting directors ask if I have a sore throat. The people who have told me that my voice is distinctive, it’s unusual…those people have always been close to my heart.
What’s interesting, is that I’ve found that the more accomplished a director is, the more secure they are in giving direction that sounds incredibly unsophisticated.
In cinema, the leading player is the director.
I always wanted to create a site that was sports and pop culture. ’30 for 30′ had a big impact because I loved how that was about finding, empowering and working with these incredible directors, and I thought the same thing could work for writers.
I’ve been fortunate in my career to have the opportunity to pick and choose the parts I play. I’ve also been lucky to always be involved with quality actors, quality directors, quality writers.
Screenwriting is the most prized of all the cinematic arts. Actually, it isn’t, but it should be.
There are two kinds of directors: There’s the kind where two plus two equals four, and you have to help them figure it out. And then there’s the kind that throws you in a room, locks the door, sets the house on fire and films it.
Directors, like actors, get typecast.
I’m a film rat. I love being in front of a camera. I love being behind a camera. I love talking to the director. I love talking film.
I would say that the directors that I’ve liked the most are all curious in nature – curious thinkers. They’re all big questioners, I would say, first and foremost.
I provide the bricks and mortar with the words and situations – the director and the actors and the designers build the house.
A film director is not a creator, but a midwife. His business is to deliver the actor of a child that he did not know he had inside him.
What I like about being an actress is that it keeps you feminine. Being a director and producer makes you manly and very masculine and I don’t like that quality in a woman. But I’ll do it when the film is very close to me.
I know there were things emanating from me. I was not aware of what attracted all these directors to me.
All these directors who do different locations forget that one room can be shot from a million different angles and a million different ways. When I direct a movie, I’m going to use that.
In my own experience of male and female directors, people have a much, much harder time taking a direct command from a woman. It’s somehow very difficult for people.
I think I always try to be accommodating and open and available and proving for my director. I love to give as many takes as they want. I love to give them as many choices as they want.
I think the press is doing a wonderful job of putting the pressure on the decision-makers in Hollywood to support more female directors.
A fantastic actor in a scene that’s just closed off will be good. But when working with a director who knows little tricks – correct music, slowly pushing in – that stunning performance will somehow become even better. I’ve always seen it as a symbiotic relationship.
We do not precisely enjoy liberty at the Figaro. M. de Latouche, our worthy director (ah! you should know the fellow), is always hanging over us, cutting, pruning, right or wrong, imposing upon us his whims, his aberrations, his fancies, and we have to write as he bids.
I’m a frustrated actor. My … goal is to beat Alfred Hitchcock in the number of cameos. I’m going to try to break his record.
In people’s minds, I’m a comic, so it took a lot of time before I was recognized as a director. I had to be patient until the public accepted me. As a result, my early films didn’t get a lot of attention. As a serious film actor, things didn’t take off, either. Only my comic talents were recognized.
Elephant Man [movie] was much more difficult physically. This had a couple of days. It was quite tricky. I had my leg strapped up behind me and I am a little older now. It was all marvelous, though. He [Bong Joon-ho] is one of the most fabulous directors in the world.
That is the great pleasure of working with great directors. You get to look at the world through many different prisms. I guess I love talent, whatever form it takes.
I always claim that the writer has done 90 percent of the director’s work.
Gotta watch out for directors.
People don’t normally just say, ‘Do you want to come and audition for one of your favorite directors?’
I think what’s fun about the fairytales is just seeing what everybody interprets them as, which comes from the different directors and what they want to do with them.
I think that too often we, film directors, think that a big epic novel and feature film are the same. It’s a lie. A feature film is much closer to a short story actually.
I suppose as an actor you become very sensitive to rhythm, not just rhythm as you look at it sort of from the, from the outside as a director might see it, but within yourself you become used to the idea of hearing your fellow actors, responding to them in space.
[on editing of the films] There is always a question of time, and the director. I’ve worked with a lot of directors who don’t mind my involvement. They appreciated it.
My criteria for doing theater has always been slightly different than my criteria with movies, in that there are a lot of reasons to do films, having to do with location, money, and first and foremost having to do with script and role and director.
I mean, I’m willing to do anything with Chris Chulack – he’s one of my favorite directors I’ve ever worked with, and I just think he’s a fantastic man, and a great creator, and a good friend.
If I hadn’t left Texas, I might not have met the director Terrence Malick, and I wouldn’t have met my husband and I wouldn’t have had the children that I’ve had. Life is interesting like that.
I’m the girl that waits for the director to say, ‘I like that,’ or ‘Can you boost it up?,’ or ‘Can you pull it down?’ I’m that kind of actor. I started in theater, so that’s the feedback that I’m accustomed to. It’s the feedback that I really thrive off of.
(When asked what a director does) I help.
Critics don’t want to see directors they like make too much of a left turn. That’s good for criticism.
Definitely my favorite cut is the one that got put out. That’s my favorite version of the film, the one that I put in theaters. That’s my directors cut, there’s no question about it.
There are plenty of bad actors and there are plenty of bad directors. There are actors who will always be bad and there are good actors who you cry for because they’re being badly directed or the material isn’t good enough.
I enjoy collaborating with all of the directors I have worked with. I love collaborating with creative people on interesting projects.
I’ve imparted that philosophy to the writers, but some of them look stuff up while some don’t. Same with the editors, directors and actors. To each their own.
Sometimes, when you work with directors who have done it a lot and are established in the business and know the game, there are all these rules that they have. First-time directors will allow you to come in with choices. They’re not so jaded by actors that they’re like, ‘Ugh, just do your job, man.
There are a lot of scripts that you can like, but rarely are there directors attached when you’re in development with something and that’s stressful.
Usually directors hire me because I’m what they are looking for. But once in a while, and it’s very rare, they will hire me and then try to make me over.
Acting is the work of two people – it’s only possible when you have the complicity, the help, even the manipulation of a director.
I’ve always said that with a lot of the horror franchises that I’ve started, it’s like directing a pilot. I come in, I direct the first movie and all these directors come in and direct all the sequels after me and hey have to kind of retain the look, the tone, and the characters.
It’s nice, because after you’ve worked with various directors and producers enough times, they start to know your voice and what you’re capable of.
You need the words, you need the script, you need the material, you need the commitment, you need the passion, it’s like we depend on writers, we depend on producers, directors depend on us and once things are in the divine order as they happen.
Normally, I rely heavily on my director to massage me out of my actor comfort zones.
The first time I went over to [my director’s] house, he said to me, This is a very strange play. I was pleased that he reminded me of that. [He] understands the play [VENUS] intellectually and emotionally and the humor, the funny bone.
I kind of end up getting caught up in whatever the rhythm of the movie is and how open the director is to changing things in the moment or finding it in rehearsal.
As a director myself, you want to have colleagues and collaborators that respect your authority as the director. I’m very comfortable with that, and I’ve done a lot of work in second unit.
I think I’m probably one of the worst directors around, but I do have an interest in my fellow man.
You never really know what the director has got in his mind as far as the scene visually and art direction wise, etc. Even if you do, sometimes there’s a side of things that don’t necessarily gel the way people intend. So there a bit of a mystical entity, film.
Do you know what directors go through? It’s just hell. Like, why do I work so hard – to think I’m only going to see this movie five times and then never see it again ’cause I’m so sick of it? What is it worth, honestly?
I always want to do something I haven’t done before and get to work with other actors, writers, or directors that I want to work with.
Women think in Sirk’s films. Something which has never struck me with other directors. None of them. Usually women are always reacting, doing what women are supposed to do, but in Sirk they think. It’s something that has to be seen.
I think the best directors rarely loose their temper. I think the best directors provide you with a safe environment where they can instill you with confidence and allow you to try things out and not feel like your failing or that you’re doing it wrong.
It helps, if you’ve directed, to be able to write a script that is director-friendly. You’re really telling them [directors], “This is how it works on this show.” It takes some of the guesswork out of it.
I believe I am a better director than actor. I enjoy acting if the part is right. Directing comes very naturally to me. I enjoy it. I am very confident in my work.
I don’t consider myself a competition to anyone. There is ample space for everyone here. When there are directors who create characters for me, why should I feel bothered or insecure? When it comes to updating myself, I work very hard to relate to the emotions of characters I play.
From my studies of genetics and neuroscience I have come to believe that people fall into four broad personality types – each influenced by a different brain chemical: I call them the Explorer, Builder, Director, and Negotiator.
I was an actor as a kid in Boston. Then I went to art school with Brice Marden, the Massachusetts College of Art. So the hybrid of being an actor and artist is a director.
The popular image that Hollywood is ruined by difficult prima donna actors is nonsense. They’re certainly very nice to directors. I can’t say the same about producers, who I found difficult, paranoid, and certifiably insane, mostly.
I’m lucky enough that directors sometimes seek me out for little projects that people don’t even know about, that just surface later on.
Todd [Phillips] doesn’t care. That’s part of his genius as a director, he will say anything to anybody.
What I found about ‘Nashville’ coming in is it’s about these small performances. It can be on a big stage but detailed, small, heartfelt, real performances from musicians and singers. So if you try to do something bloated or showy, the directors dial us in and let us know.
My advice to women directors is just to make the best work possible.
[In relationships with a directors] I want to be able to give and take, and I can’t name what it is: respect, energy, investment in the task, focus, humor, intelligence, but I always feel responsible for taking the money.
Directing is exhausting, but not for the actual directing part, when you say “Action!” and give creative notes. As a director, the exhausting part is that you are a professional answer-machine.
Some call me director, producer, filmmaker. I prefer to call myself pube-king.
For example I don’t work with William Hurt the same way that I will work with Viggo. They’re different guys and they work in different ways. So a good sensitive director has his general style and technique and personality that he uses but you don’t impose that on the actors.
If all the world’s a stage and all the people players, who in bloody hell hired the director?
I love the Kathryn Bigelow example: she didn’t just do war movies – she did them better than other directors.
Directors always used to be like the police to me – the enemy, the people to tell me what to do when I didn’t want to do it. But I’ve lived with one for a while now and I guess I can put myself more in their position. You shouldn’t be too sympathetic to them.
We haven’t seen a situation where you have the FBI director talk about an investigation side by side with the attorney general who confirms, yes, I accept the recommendation of the FBI director.
I never saw myself as a director. It’s certainly a second language but making movies for 40 years, you pick stuff up. However, this style of making movies, this documentary style, is easier for me because I gather a lot of material and with an editor, write it on screen. You try to write based on what you shot.
I learn a lot from every director that I work with. I sit on set and watch them, every one.
Sometimes you have to say the words exactly how they are on the page, but sometimes when you improv, it only helps to get across what’s on the page, and I just love working with directors who allow that.
I owe Bankhead a gift; she made a director out of me.
I’m not really a full-time director, I just like to direct the things that I write because I think I’m going to know it better than someone else.
I love working with the best directors in the world and great material. If I get an opportunity to do that, I’m going to do it. On the other hand, if something doesn’t really hold a candle, I’m going to put my efforts where I can be the most effective.
I think that collaboration makes me a better director and observer and writer because I can look at things in a different way.
All film directors, even the ones using 3-D today, want you to look at what they chose.
I think of myself as a meat-and-potatoes kind of director.
I’m a theatre person, that’s who I am. I’m happy to make sojourns into the world of movies but I’m basically a theatre director that potters off and does a couple of movies.
I have worked with a lot of great directors but my favorites are all entirely different from one another. They don’t go about it the same way.
I want to pick good projects, I want to work with great directors and try not to put too much pressure on myself and just read things for the story and recognize when I’m drawn to something for the right reasons and try to maintain some sanity. Sanity would be good. I’d like to have a little sanity!
Zhang Yimou is one of the best directors on mainland China.
If you are a 19-year-old woman, there are very specific things that directors and the people in positions of power in the industry – who tend to be older men – are going to want you to be and do. They are not going to want some chatty, difficult, slightly spoilt girl.
One of the things about writing a novel is you can do it any way you want. It’s your voice that’s important and I see absolutely no reason why a screenplay can’t be the same. It makes it a hell of a lot easier when you’re the writer and the director.
What I do as a director is really create a safe environment that everyone can feel very comfortable in and experiment within so that they don’t hold back anything. You never ever want someone to go, ‘Oh I shouldn’t have done that.’ There isn’t anything you shouldn’t try. If it’s terrible, who cares?
A director in Hollywood in my time couldn’t do what he wanted to do.
I’ve never seen a movie director who was happier to be directing a movie than Dave [Mamet]. His sets, everyone who’s ever been involved with one of them will tell you of the funnest, funniest sets you can be on.
My dream as a producer is to be able to build a company that can be a safe haven for artists, for directors and for writers and actors to do what they do best and let them have final edit. I’d like to build something to that effect.
I think women are in much the same place in the Irish theater as they are everywhere else. Certainly, we have wonderful Irish writers, and we have quite a number of Irish women directors. But there could be more, and there should be more.
Developing films with directors, developing films with actors, is a poor percentage play for a screenwriter.
Part of the advantage, and part of the result of trying to be a producer and director, are the practical things, you find. It’s so advantageous to go to a place that you already have a feel for, a literal and spiritual familiarity.
Louis Malle is maybe one of my favorite directors, but I love Tarantino.
I’m an unusual director in that my cut is usually shorter then the final released film. I like short films.
If I were in the director’s chair, I would cast [Geena Davis] in something awesome every six months if I had the choice.
It’s whether they have a vision and whether they’re able to communicate it. The best director is just someone who gets over-excited about doing it – they don’t even have to know much about camera or acting.
A friend of my mom’s was a casting director so, really as kind of a lark, I had a couple of acting jobs that had just enough exposure to give me the option to continue if I wanted to. I followed through with it.
As an actress, I think it’s important to look back and realize that we aren’t always quite as original as we think we are. There’s this grand, textured history for us over the last 100 years of incredible writers, directors, and performers.
The more women directors that get hired, the more practices will shift, top down.
It is an honor to serve as the Ad Council’s next Chair of the Board of Directors. I am deeply committed to its mission of creating campaigns that improve everyday lives. I look forward to working with the Ad Council team and Board to continue to shine a light on the most important social issues of our day.
[Roger] Vadim became famous worldwide as a director, and I as an actress, but the other side of the coin was terrible. My life was totally turned upside down. I was followed, spied upon, adored, insulted. My private life became public.
I don’t want to be a director, or to have responsibility for hundreds of people.
Stage is the place of the playwright: you’re guided by great actors and directors, but it’s the playwright’s word on the page that counts.
In a collaborative environment directors hire actors because they want their input, not just their bodies.
All I mean is, I’m not the kind of audience comedy directors want at a test screening because I seldom laugh, and if I do, it’s not very loud. That doesn’t mean I don’t like the movie.
Oh, what the hell did I know? I went to the set the first day in full makeup and the director told me to take it off. So I did the film without makeup. I had nothing to do with anything I did. I never understood why I was so famous.
I’m more interested in photographing people who have done something, like writers or directors – even billionaires – as long as I can study them before I photograph them.
I don’t know how to put it, but I don’t have many friends. All my friends circle was in Madras, and I lost touch with them. But I’m friends with all my directors, and they are very important for me.
In Kurdistan, theres a lot of hardship – a lot of wars, a lot of bitter and difficult lifestyles. And witnessing all those made me a director.
I still think that movies are amazing; I respect actors and directors.
I don’t want to be a director. I want to direct. There’s a difference.
The first film is everything you want to say and how you want to say it. Lots of directors will do that and do it really well, but the second film is not so easy.
Good evening, ladies and gentleman. My name is Orson Welles. I am an actor. I am a writer. I am a producer. I am a director. I am a magician. I appear onstage and on the radio. Why are there so many of me and so few of you?
Just being hired by a great director is complimentary.
The question I always ask is: ‘Where are all the women directors in America?’ You know, where’s the female Martin Scorsese, the female David Lynch?
My strongest quality as an actor is taking direction. I will give my performance as a template and if the director gives any instruction, I take that information, process it and morph it into the next take. I love the feeling I get when nailing a scene through direction.
Director Gary Ross has created an adaptation that is faithful in both narrative and theme, but he’s also brought a rich and powerful vision of Panem, its brutality and excesses, to the film as well. His world building’s fantastic, whether it be the Seam or the Capitol.
Sometimes directors will hire you and say, ‘Oh, we love your work.’ And then they start to tell you how to do it. I say, ‘Hey, man, back off. You hired me to do it. Let me do it.’
In my own life, I have noticed when I have been meeting directors, that the same sentence with the same inflection can be said by a man, like: “Get me this.” But if the same thing is said by a woman, it’s seen as harsh and unacceptable. That always fascinates me.
My interpretation of a strong director is someone who knows their story. That’s what directors are, they’re storytellers because they’re directing where your focus is going to be as an audience.
It’s hard to give up that amount of control. It’s scary to make yourself that vulnerable. Because you might do all kinds of things that are unplanned or are unexpected that maybe don’t work, and you have to trust the director to see that and work around those things. I find it really scary.
I always think it’s a sign of a truly gifted director when they can move seamlessly between genres.
It is great to work on different scripts with different directors who have different styles. You get so much experience from that.
One tries to be an observer as an actor and indeed as a director because the small things, the give-away things are what are really interesting to a performer.
A million pounds sounds like a lot of money now that I’m saying it. But in terms of moviemaking, it’s not a lot of money. And yet you can see what can be done with that, with the talent of a great cinematographer and great director and actors.
As an action director I always try to bring something fresh and new.
The very nature of cool is that you think about it too much and it becomes uncool.
I’ve had amazing experiences with directors who believed in me.
I’ve got to be out doing a million things. That’s how I find stories. That’s how I get the relationships and get the projects that I get with the writers, the directors.
Producers and directors think they have the power, but what they think of as the weakest link, the actor, is all-powerful.
I want all my films to look distinctly different, like some other directors I admire. But in a way, I can’t really take myself completely out of the movies I make.
Definitely the script because you want to be part of an interesting story, you want your character to be a challenge, then comes the director. But essentially it’s the script first and whether it’s a character that you think you can do.
There needs to be more film directors of colour. They bandy about the word ‘diversity’ a lot, but when I say ‘of colour,’ I mean Asian, black – I mean people of all colour. We need to have those voices given the opportunity, not told that their films will not be distributed or will not sell well abroad.
Whenever I’ve been asked to be in a film, directors only want me to play myself… I’m fascinated by the thought of being an actor, but it’s too hard. And I think Shakespeare-which has been suggested to me-might be a bit of a stretch.
The profession of film director can and should be such a high and precious one; that no man aspiring to it can disregard any knowledge that will make him a better film director or human being.
I’ve figured out what to do so far, but it’s always the next thing you come to where the man with the bucket of ice cold water is waiting – whoosh! in your face. That’s why you work with directors who know what to tell you to do.
As a director, you’re only as good as your collaborators. You surround with collaborators that are going to understand what you’re trying to do. Not only that, they’re going to push and fight for what you’re trying to do.
I get asked why there aren’t more female directors all the time. I’m kind of reluctant to talk about it. That’s not because I think the question is irrelevant or stupid. It’s just that there are so many mitigating factors.
I think the perspective that small-town directors bring to films is very different.
I think when you work with really wonderful directors who have a really strong vision, it lets you as an artist set the tone for your own career.
First, speaking for myself, I don’t want to ever be in a position where I’m telling other directors how to make movies, because I don’t think it’s any of my business.
I find it kind of weird that directors want to put themselves in their films.
I am a director because I believe in my own impulses and my own point of view, and that belief encourages me to tell stories that will move, provoke, and change people. But I became a director because I wanted to be a part of the world.
Every director bites the hand that lays the golden egg.
As an actor, most of the time, you only have so much say in how, what and where things go. As a director, you really get to paint a bigger picture. You have many more brushes to use.
A lot of new American directors have had mentors who have given them advice. And some of them have had the way paved for them by huge Hollywood directors who saw a younger version of themselves.
Because I’ve always aspired to direct and produce, I’ve literally worked with about 200 directors and countless producers, so what I appreciate is how, through osmosis and through actually asking questions and through people offering wisdom, there’s a lot in there.
I don’t watch the movies I make, so I haven’t seen ‘Footloose’ since it came out. You see this young, hungry actor, it’s pretty fun. I was the only one they screen tested. It was an attempt by the director and producer to talk the head of the studio into hiring me because they didn’t want me.
I did all my directing when I wrote the screenplay. It was probably harder for a regular director. He probably had to read the script the night before shooting started.
Todd Solondz is one of my favorite directors.
I’ve done auditions where the casting director is taking the paper out of my hand in the middle of reading.
I’m just trying to choose interesting, quirky projects or things with interesting directors or just movies that have a lot of people I like attached to them so I know I’m going to have a good time.
A lot of young directors, they’re not confident; they’re not open to the emotional level of the scene.
And also, Sergio Leone was considered in Italy a director of category B, not a big director.
I read that Hollywood wanted to film Fences years ago with a white director, but [August] Wilson refused. He thought that the director needed to have lived the culture of black Americans.
You are the executive director and screenwriter of your life.
I want to do literally everything. I think I was gifted… I inherited one of the best comedy visionaries as a director.
In Dreams…well, I was slightly overcompensating with that. I was a bit like a director for hire, so maybe I was putting too much imagery that was familiar to me into it.
I walked around my apartment with food in my mouth asking myself: “How do I come up with this voice?” Then I found the voice. I called the director and said on the phone: “Guess who you’re talking to Chris? Sid, that’s right Sid!” And that’s how I came up with the voice. That’s a true story.
Let’s say [Warren Beatty] wants you to speak louder in a scene. He won’t stop playing the role and say to you as a director, “Will you speak louder on the next take?” He’ll say it as Howard Hughes: “I can’t totally hear you. Why don’t you speak up a little bit?” To kind of keep this rhythm going.
I was offered and accepted a part in ‘A Few Best Men,’ and then the Australian actor’s union argued that there were too many British actors. And the director decided to lose me.
When I’m acting, I’m in the director’s hands. I’m very happy to be. I like to be focused on what I’m doing.
If the script’s good, everything you need is in there. I just try and feel it, and do it honestly.
When I was a crusade director in British Columbia, all of our meetings were at 9:03. Somebody said ‘That’s ridiculous. Why did you do that?’ It’s because you remember it. You’ve never been to another 9:03 meeting.
There’s nothing wrong with you that a little Prozac and a polo mallet can’t cure.
The director of 500 Days of Summer is doing the Spider-Man movie. That’s not necessarily the movies I want to make, but it’s all about the story, and if you connect to the story, and you feel you can tell that story better than anyone else, then great. Jon Favreau killed Iron Man, I loved it.
I like directors who have worked as actors. They know the experience.
Any time you talk about the look of the film, it’s not just the director and the director of photography. You have to include the costume designer and the production designer.
Some musical directors have more chutzpah. They pick up the phone and talk people into giving. I prefer to call and say ‘thank you’ after the money has been contributed.
Actually, the few good Chinese movies that foreign countries choose to import are Zhang Yimou’s, and mine, a few directors, but how many movies can we make in a year? We can only make a few, while they turn them out continuously.
There are American directors I’d really like to work with, but I don’t know how much I want to be sitting in my house, doing the rounds of meetings with CEOs. You have to be really hardworking to do all that, and I’m lazy.
