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.
The 20-year goal is to be a film director. The 15-year goal is to win an Oscar. The five-year goal is to just keep enjoying myself.
Every time I work with a European director, I find they hire the person that captures the spirit of the role. Americans tend to hire the best face. The person that looks more like the role, whether they can perform the role or not is a bonus.
About film direction, nothing is impossible. Maybe someday, you will see me donning the director’s hat.
The director is planning on titling the film ‘Yummy Fur’ so we are probably planning on changing the title of the book to ‘Yummy Fur’ to match the film.
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.
Normally as a director, you do look at other films and things that are relevant. But with this film, it became impossible because I became so aware of the camera placement.
I’m a storyteller – that’s the chief function of a director. And they’re moving pictures, let’s make ’em move!
I started out as an assistant to a director on two movies, Miguel Arteta. The movies I worked on were ‘Chuck and Buck’ and ‘The Good Girl.’ I didn’t even know I wanted to be a director until I started working with Miguel.
I always want to work with a good director who’s backed by excellent producers.
I have worked with another first-time director who was not that open, and it was probably one of the worst experiences I ever had, so my antennas are really out.
Sometimes the odds are against you-the director doesn’t know what the hell he’s doing, or something falls apart in the production, or you’re working with an actor who’s just unbearable.
I think a good director is a good listener.
I think trust is the most important thing. If the actors and the director and the crew trust each other and you set up perimeters and boundaries, you give everyone space to do great work.
The first heart you win over is that casting director. In first meetings, they’ll be the ones who see your pitch for the character. And then as you get further up, they’ll be the ones reading with you in front of the network.
There is a kind of thinking in the Church that wants to reduce the priest to a mere functionary, a managing director, where administration rather than doctrine and worship are to determine the form of the Church.
When I was general director of City Opera, we were pioneers in the practice of projecting supertitles so that American audiences finally could know what all the singing was about.
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 have only one rule in acting – trust the director and give him heart and soul.
It’s hard to be surprised by a film. It’s hard to be surprised by another actor or by a director when you’ve seen enough and been around. So when I am, or when I forget that I’m watching someone’s movie, or when I don’t know how someone made a certain turn that I didn’t expect . . . You know, I’m in.
And I think being a good director is being able to be completely tyrannical and you’ve got to be an absolute dictator while at the same time, you have to listen and see everything because it can all change on a dime.
You show people playing poker or hacking into a computer; it feels so significant in the script, and then when you see it on the screen, it loses something. But there’s something about cooking – food being prepared is incredibly captivating. It became just a fun box of tools to use as a director.
In a movie, you’re raw material, just a hue of some color and the director makes the painting.
Just being hired by a great director is complimentary.
Usually, I don’t want to sit down and listen to the director gas on about his movie. I just can’t actually imagine myself sitting down and having that much to say.
In my cranky old age, I actually prefer recording alone now, on ‘The Simpsons,’ for example, because I find that the director can just focus on what I’m doing and I can do a lot of variations. A lot of times, when I record with a group, I’ll stay after class for another hour or two.
When I read ‘The Water Diviner,’ I was having the same kind of visceral reaction that I would normally have acting in something. I believed that I was the only person that could tell this story the way it needed to be told. That’s the real arrogance of a director!
I love working with new directors. There’s so much drive and effort. It still comes down to the character for me, but if it’s a character I really want to play, I would never not do the project because of a new director.
I had never thought of myself as a director and found out that I was not. I am a writer who was able to direct the films that I write.
How can you have a director that doesn’t go to work with the crew every day and talk to them?
When I feel like being a director, I write a novel.
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’m not a real film buff. Unfortunately, I don’t have time. I just don’t go. And I become very nervous when I go to a film because I worry so much about the director and it is hard for me to digest my popcorn.
Judd Apatow is pretty good, both as a producer and as a director.
It’s not like I woke up one day and said, ‘Okay, I want to become a director.’
I don’t care about names attached to the script. That doesn’t matter to me. All things being equal, I would like to work with a good script with a good director, and the part I play is of less important than those two factors.
My sole inspiration is a telephone call from a director.
I got an internship with the casting director of The Girl Next Door. I would hold the clipboard and help them in their casting sessions and get them lunch.
The director sent for me for Tarzan. I climbed the tree and walked out on a limb. The next day I was told I was an actor.
Any director, if you really ask them, will tell you that the toughest thing to do is like a dinner table or a dialogue scene, because you need to keep that electricity maintained throughout the course of the film.
I’m a little less hungry as an actor than I used to be. When you’re a director, you’re the conductor of the orchestra, and when you’re an actor, you’re playing the violin. There’s a thrill to each of them, but as the conductor, you get the fuller sound.
I am a fan of all genres. My big thing is to serve the purpose of the script and what the director wants. If it’s a comedy, I want to be funny; if it’s action, I want to bring the action. If it’s drama, I want to be the catalyst for that drama. That’s the fun part; it never gets boring being an actor.
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.
Alexander Gonzalez Inarritu is a great director. He’s the one I first worked with. He’s amazing.
What I feel is great acting might be rubbish for another filmmaker. There is no right or wrong way to do it. It all boils down to the trust between an actor and a director.
I know the pressures of being the daughter of a great actress. But it’s inspiring. You learn so much that other people don’t get to learn until later on. My father being a director, I learnt a real work ethic.
Now I’m kind of established as a director, I much prefer directing to writing.
And Louis Freeh was a completely dysfunctional FBI Director, who was actually waging his own private war against the Clinton Administration.
Fathering is a major job, but I need both things in my life: my job to be a director, and my kids to direct me.
I would love to get great performances from actors as a director, because that’s what I’m always looking for, a director that’s going to help me go places I’ve never been before.
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?
I had great luck with Tim McGraw twice in ‘Friday Night Lights’ and ‘The Kingdom.’ I love finding off-beat casting and finding someone you know in one way and you reinvent them in another way. I like doing that as a director.
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.
The Dead was cool, It’s a great horror story. I went to the casting director of this movie and talked to him, then they called my agent and had me come in and read for it and they wanted to use me.
The challenge to me as a director was for the audience to see the film as going on in a straight line, so that they did not sense all of these break-ups. I did not want a film to be a collage of all these images.
