I have no idea what makes a director believe in me that I can sell these kind of roles.
The problem with most Hollywood movies is they don’t give the director enough control.
I wanted to be Steven Spielberg, Tim Burton, Stanley Kubrick, David Cronenberg, Ridley Scott, James Cameron, and Hitchcock. I’d wanted to be a director since 13, and horror and the suspense thriller were the most powerful genres to me.
I feel like the books were just written like a movie. You read it and you can just kind of see everything. Before I went in to read with the director, I read the first book and I loved it. I didn’t realize how good the writing was. And then I went in and read with Gary Ross, and that was it.
I have been a director who has starred, participated on both sides of the filmmaking process.
I always choose my projects for the script or what the director want to tell with that story. And if I like the story.
I want to support other women because of the opportunities I’ve had – and I’ve had a lot of opportunities. What I try as a female director is to do the best job I can and, in the meantime, bring attention to as many other female directors and writers as I can.
I don’t want to make a comfortable film. I’m not interested in that. I’m not interested in answering people’s questions; I’m interested in posing questions. I’m interested in sparking a conversation between two people about what something means. That’s enough for me, as a writer and as a director.
As a director, nobody told me I’d be talking to people all day. I’m naturally reclusive – I feel myself peek out at a certain point and go, ‘All the extrovert in me is done! I’m on reserve!’
I’m supposed to be the director of a television company, but I’ve only ever seen that company as a vehicle for making the kind of programmes we wanted to make, getting our ideas on the screen.
I think of myself as a problem-solver. I want to go in and help the director and the writer to get the best they can out of the text they’re working with.
When you get to work with a good director, an actor’s job gets reduced to half.
This is indeed not only relevant to Documentary but is evident is most type of film making. The film often mirrors the experience, understanding and politics of the director.
I wanted to do – there was this film called ‘Magic’ that Anthony Hopkins did. And the director wanted me. The writer wanted me. Joe Levine said no, I don’t want any comedians in this.
Whenever one sees a director at work, anyone would hesitate to disturb him or her on the sets.
The Director of the Laboratory, George Reynolds, was most supportive of my efforts to work independently. There followed for ten years a glorious time for research.
I had pictured myself as a filmmaker but I had never pictured myself as a director if that makes any sense at all.
I can tell you that from the director’s chair, young actors love to be challenged, to be given killer lines that take time to wrap their mind around.
A director is a choreographer, both politically and creatively.
I think what makes a good actor’s director is somebody who understands what I’m doing and is respectful of it, but who also has a vision and is directing me toward their vision in a way that feels productive.
If the director says you can do better, particularly in a love scene, then it is rather embarrassing.
A director is the captain of the ship; he gets the vision of the film much before anyone else can. While I want to experiment with characters, I know a good director means I am in safe hands.
If you know where you stand, and your minus and plus points as a director or as a human being, you will never go wrong. You will always be successful.
The film director, in many instances, has to swallow somebody else’s decision about the final form of something. It’s so hard as to be intolerable.
I am a sensitive writer, actor and director. Talking business disgusts me. If you want to talk business, call my disgusting personal manager.
I’m fairly competant as a director and actor, but I am Mr. Neurotic as a writer. I just don’t have enough confidence in my abilities to take criticism well. I take it personally. Start with ‘It’s a masterpiece,’ and then tell me what you think could be changed.
I always claim that the writer has done 90 percent of the director’s work.
‘Barton Fink’ owed something to Roman Polanski. As a director, he always goes beyond the obvious narrative drift.
Sometimes a director is making three films. Perhaps he is shooting a film in Madras and a film in Bombay and he can’t leave Madras as some shooting has to be done, so he directs by telephone. The shooting takes place. On schedule.
And I think one way or another it’s evident to those who work with me that as a writer, a director, a friend, as somebody’s there that’s very anxious to get the movie made.
I’m an enormous fan of Ron Howard. I mean, he’s the most extraordinary director.
I’m a believer in trusting the director.
Not at all, I wanted to go into medicine. I took science in college. But my dad was a Producer – Director in Kannada films, and someone saw me, and one thing led to another.
Despite being such a brilliant director, Hansal Mehta is a simple and down to earth man. He is very sorted and driven by passion. So that’s a rare combination – being a good craftsman and a good human being.
Since stepping down as laboratory director in 1999, I have devoted an increasing fraction of my time to international issues. I am involved with energy, environment, and sustainability issues, particularly as they involve new energy sources free of greenhouse gases.
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.
Mel is a great director because he’s not just a director, he’s an actor, so he knows how to direct actors. I loved working with him. He’s great as a director. He’s so intelligent. He’s generous. I really loved him.
I’m happiest when I can just be a director and watch.
My husband’s a director, so he understands what I do.
Being a director is almost like being another sort of character, but you’re out of view.
The program director at a radio station, by the way, is not the superstar. If he was a superstar, he’d be out creating songs, but he’s not. But he wants to act like he has control and power.
The first thing I ask when I’m offered a part is, Who’s the director? which is something they never understand in Los Angeles.
We came up with this idea of a power struggle between two people who really love each other, and ‘Doll & Em’ took off. Calling it by our own names was the director’s idea, but hopefully people will understand that we’re playing versions of ourselves.
I always go crazy over every scene and have to discuss it with my director many times. Even Sekhar Kammula, who directed me in ‘Fidaa,’ knows this.
I’m so bad at dancing that I’ve actually been in two movies where the director of the film saw me dancing and thought it was so funny that in one movie they had me do it as the mental dancing of a real simple person. The other one was, like, to-be-laughed-at dancing. That’s how bad my dancing is.
As an actor, I’m attracted to drama; as a director, it’s humor – because it’s the story of my life, and I can’t be that serious about it. Being alone is a big theme in all my movies, both as a director and as an actress.
I think film and television are really a director’s medium, whereas theatre is the actor’s medium.
With Alien, because we always use a different director, each one kind of stands on its own. So I guess it’s possible for them to make another one, but we have no plans.
Good is the director who lets you do what you have to do.
It depends who the director is you know, I mean Ken Loach for instance. I’ve done up to 32 takes with him.
I don’t even know if I can call myself a director.
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.
Sometimes a character is really based on research that you do. Other times it’s just based on your imagination or perhaps your conversation with the director. Or sometimes all of the above. It depends on the movie and character.
The movies I like to make are very rich and full of passion. Some people see me as an action director, but action is not the only thing in my movies. I always like to show human nature – something deep inside the heart.
‘Killer Joe’ provides a lot of red meat for the theater. Pam MacKinnon is the perfect director to shepherd a group of actors who share a certain bloodlust.
Quentin Tarantino is my 15-year-old son’s favorite director, and by that I mean no condescension to either Tarantino or my 15-year-old son.
I definitely managed to do different kinds of things. My focus is usually who the director is, because at the end of the day the director is the storyteller, what the movie is all about. I don’t want to participate in something that I don’t think is constructive storytelling.
My mom is Episcopalian; my dad is ancestrally Jewish but personally atheist. After their divorce, however, my dad married a Jewish spiritual director, and I became fascinated by the traditions she brought into our lives.
