I don’t really care where I work, actually, because you know making a movie is like living in movie world. There’s such a secluded world, and the director is the king ruling the country, and everybody’s building this little town to speak in symbolism.
I like working as a director most.
I like to work with people who want to make films because they are passionate about films and not because they want to sell films and make money. I am not for people who get the most saleable actor and then the most saleable director and sell the film.
The joy about the recording is that you are your own boss. You don’t have a director telling you how to do it.
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.
Like any creative human being, I would like a bit more control so that it would be a little easier for me when the director says, ‘One tear, right now,’ that one tear would pop out.
A film director has to get a shot, no matter what he does. We’re desperate people.
I didn’t so much choose the film as director Claire Denis chose me.
One longs for a director with a sense of imagination.
When I meet a good actor, I would like to be a director. When I meet a good director, I would like to be an actor. When there is a good script, I would like to be both a director and an actor. The switch is very natural, not intentional.
Portraying Mozart is a scary task. Whenever I’m asked to portray actual historic figures, it comes with extra accountability. Not just to your director and playwright, but to the man himself and the beloved persona that the public forms.
I view the whole thing as a collaboration. As an actor, I always found that to be the most freeing thing, when the director would collaborate with you, so that together you’d come up with something exponentially better.
I never thought of becoming a director. When I was twelve, the passage from silent film to the talkies had an impact on me – I still watch silent films.
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.
Some things you know about, you know what the ingredients are – maybe not all of them. But it’s up to you to put in the amount. It’s up to the director to nag you until you get it right.
The performance of a music director should be judged in a holistic manner, which includes songs as well as background score.
Directors are our teachers, and I’m always craving to work with a great director. They’re pretty much the first thing that interests me about a project. Let’s put it this way: It’ll take me a lot longer to read a script if there’s no director attached.
As a cinematographer or director, I’m always looking for projects that are able to say a lot with the actor’s expressions.
I was concerned about who he would put in there as FBI director because he had expressed antipathy for the FBI, for the director. I was going to stay there and make sure that he couldn’t replace me.
In the studio the director controls the actor’s every move, every inflection, every expression.
I was in a show choir. I can’t sing or dance to save my life, but I was very passionate. People said my parents paid the choir director to let me in. It was actually the parents who started that one!
Obviously I’d love to work with any of these great directors because every time I’ve worked with them I’ve gained a tremendous amount as an actor. Each director has his own way of pushing you towards improving yourself.
I got a nomination for director, which means the world to me; it’s just the most exciting thing for me and my family. You do the good hard work, and the rest of it is something you shouldn’t get too caught up in, but when it happens – boy! I respect it.
In Hitchcock’s eyes the movement was dramatic, not the acting. When he wanted the audience to be moved, he moved the camera. He was a subtle human being, and he was also the best director I have ever worked with.
An established film director can just pick up the phone and say to a star, ‘Hey, are you interested in doing a commercial?’
It’s cool for me because I’m a director, but I’m also a teacher. I’m a lover of cinema, and I love working with people who are hungry and have the energy to really do better work.
My college training was primarily in theatre, with an eye to becoming a director, actor, or producer.
We’re producing a movie now, ‘The Onion’ Movie, and it’s very difficult for me to be on the set. If I’m not right in the trenches, it’s very difficult for me to watch another director, because I’m not involved and it’s not exciting.
I don’t think it’s a director’s job to peek behind the curtain too much.
I’m always cautious about overstepping any boundaries. At the end of the day, it’s a director’s medium, and if they don’t want to hear from me I just step back.
Casting sometimes is fate and destiny more than skill and talent, from a director’s point of view.
I’m a real director.
On the stage, you alone hold the key, and on the night you have to trust that the director has inspired you enough to take the material and run with it.
A director shouldn’t get in the way of the movie, the story should.
Certainly as a director you want to be working with people who are on the same page as you and that you can trust and get along with.
You have to write a good score that you feel good about. At least, you’re supposed to. But, if the director hates it, it ain’t going to be in the movie!
The lead actor, along with the director, plays a big role in what the vibe will be on set, and that’s a huge responsibility.
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.
As a director, I never feel that I have the answers.
I have to say that whatever decisions I make, I really do think that movie making is a director’s medium. They are the people that ultimately shape the film, and a director can take great material and turn it into garbage if they are not capable of making a good movie.
Oddly, in a sense, I still have more confidence as a director than my ability as a writer. Somehow, directing is just really easy. It’s just about being really honest about how you feel about what you’re seeing.
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.
I sketched out a rough story for them and the director said, well it’s a good story but we have the go-ahead from Universal to make this script and did I want to do it. I said no, and they left.
But in the UK, I’ve given up any hope of being considered 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.
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.’
A good director is not an expert in anything in particular. A good director just knows a little bit about everything.
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.
As a director, if you know what you want, then it’s not scary.
I try to be in the office as much as possible to get the full experience working with volunteers, making phone calls, putting out signs – things that the communications director probably normally wouldn’t do.
I mean, I’ve sold all these scripts and nothing’s been made. Studios have closed, stars have died. I had a director find Jesus. And the pictures just don’t get made.
Whether I’m writing the script, or someone else writes the initial draft, I’m always an actor’s director first. I always try to listen to them a lot and try to put their voices into their character.
I started out as a writer and a director. I started acting because I wanted to know how to relate to the actors. When people ask me what I do, I don’t really say that I’m an actor, because actors often wait for someone to give them roles.
I heard that the same thing occurred in a scene in Alien, where the creature pops out of the chest of a crewman. The other actors didn’t know what was to happen; the director wanted to get true surprise.
Filmmaking has always involved pairs: a director coupled with a producer, a director alongside an editor… The notion of couples is not foreign to cinema.
There’s no such thing as a non-final cut director.
When I am shooting, I am inside the theatre, when I am in the editing room, I am inside the theatre. I always try to feel what they will feel. I see a film, not as a director, but as the audience. If I am entertained, they will be, too.