As a director you have to be careful you don’t over-design the film. You have to be careful that the period aspect does not take over.
That was me under the bath and the water being held down. The director wanted it to look as real as possible so he told Keanu, in front of me, don’t go easy on her. So it was scary.
I got space from Travis Air Force Base, went back to the Philippine Islands and made it a point to meet the only American casting director in the Philippines. I was off and running.
You talk about what a director, he was smart. He said, Turn the camera on!
I play the guitar. This year at the Sundance film festival, I joined the band from ‘The Guitar’ on stage. We warmed up for Patti Smith, and then the director Michel Gondry got on the drums to play some songs from the soundtrack to his film Be Kind Rewind with Mos Def. It was pretty mad.
David Mamet was great to work with. He was everything that I thought he would be as a director. He’s incredibly articulate, an easy collaborator. Extraordinarily knowledgeable about film and writing.
In every shoot, between the actor and the director there is manipulation. I’m not saying that negatively. It’s healthy.
You have to get it in your brain that you don’t belong to yourself as an actor, but that you belong to the director who creates the character.
Kelly Preston is a remarkable human being and a great dramatic actress. It was a privilege as a director to tap into this part of her. Rarely do I make a kind of spiritual connection with my cast. Kelly was a wonderful exception. She is truly very special and I adore her.
Sirk was every woman’s dream of a director.
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 doubted that there were Communists hiding behind every corporation desk and director’s chair.
I was creating characters early. People didn’t beat me up. I scared them. I hated authority. I could also get people to do things; I was quite the early director. I could make people laugh enough to get their defences down – and then brainwash them.
I’m becoming a frustrated director, I think, in an actor’s body.
I guess I say this for younger actors out there: you have to be brave, and you have to be ready to fail, and that’s the only way you can be unique. So when a director is confident enough in what they’re doing, and they allow their actors to be brave and bring in stuff, the more likely it’s going to work out okay.
In England, I’m a horror movie director. In Germany, I’m a filmmaker. In the US, I’m a bum.
If I’d said, ‘I’m going to be a director,’ it probably wouldn’t have happened.
It’s fun to do something funny and have the director laughing. It makes you feel good.
As a boss, as a CEO, as a creative director, as a chef, I’ve learned that failure will always come. I’ve learned to give it a big squeeze, smile at it, humble myself to it and then use it as a springboard to send me on my way to strength, success, and fulfillment.
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.
One thing about being a stand-up is it’s a one-man show. You gotta do everything. You’re the producer, writer, director, and the actor. You just gotta be out there and perform and give your all. It’s such an honest form of art that it just taught me so much, and it kind of prepared me for manhood at an early age.
That’s why I never became a director. I never had patience with people.
I think that it helps that I have acted. That said, it doesn’t mean you’re going to be a good director.
My tendency as an actor was to correct people, was to say, ‘What if we tried it this way, what about if we tried that way?’ That’s terrible habit for an actor, but that’s a good habit for director. So I became a director.
Every movie you do, you find something in yourself that you probably didn’t know that you had, and a director will find something in you that you can nurture and find and bring for the next one.
I will never become a director or a movie producer. I was always looking at picture directing because I didn’t know what to do! You can’t be a movie director without real preparation.
One guy records the voices, another guy times the storyboard, another guy times the sheets, one guy is the story editor. All these jobs should be covered by the director.
I got my MFA from AFI as a director in 2010. I’ve had time to make the shorts that I made previous to ‘Hereditary’ and to kind of build these movies in my head.
I had to go and sing with the musical director of the film, Simon Lee, who is just incredible, and it went great. I sang with him about five things, things we’d worked on. And then I went to sing for Andrew Lloyd Weber.
A good script and a good brief from the director is enough to let me know what is expected of me.
I am a director. I’m the one who can order men around.
So yeah, a good director will be able to listen and hear everything, but have a confident vision of his own that he can say, ‘oh yeah – that’s a great point.’ And you never know; often you can help far more than you think you can, because there’s so much more that he’s juggling than an actor.
For us, as actors, and even for the director, it gave us a sense of authenticity to what we were doing because we were talking about Hollywood and we were in Hollywood.
I don’t really need a lot of help from a director.
Once the director calls for action, we act; we stop when he says ‘Cut.’ It is sort of like meditation – unknowingly, you are moving out of yourself, becoming someone else. That is why I consider acting a form of meditation.
I think, to be a director, sometimes you need to have certain hunches – you have to believe in some gut feeling.
My father was an important person, the director of the school. He could talk to anybody – simple or educated. He liked chess, fishing, and beautiful women.
I’ve been a DJ, janitor, ditch digger, waitress, computer instructor, programmer, mechanic, web developer, clerk, manager, marketing director, tour guide and dorm manager, among other things.
I was an executive producer. I’ve done a lot of jobs and I think each one helps you get closer to what you want as a director. It also helps you – when you work with different filmmakers – to absorb, to adapt, to know what to watch out for, to know pitfalls.
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.
As a designer, design director or any creative person, you have to hire great people, support them and make them feel comfortable so they can contribute and give you their best.
I’m just attracted to the action element of science fiction. It’s great to sit in the editing room with the director and sound engineers and to create the feeling where your heart is racing and you’re sitting at the edge of your seat and you find yourself holding your breath.
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.
Truth be told, actually, my favorite director of the Movie Brats was not Scorsese. Loved him. But my favorite director of the Movie Brats was Brian de Palma. I actually met De Palma right after I’d done ‘Reservoir Dogs,’ and I was very beside myself.
I got nominated for my second film as best young director in the Aikido Film Festival in Japan.
I wish I could say that when I didn’t agree with a director I defer to him, but I think sometimes I’m a little self-righteous.
In my career as a director, there’s always been some point where you get halfway through it, or three-quarters, and you go: ‘What is this thing all about, and why am I telling the story? Does anybody really care about seeing this?’ At that time you have to say: ‘OK, forget that and just go ahead.’
Censorship should never go. But we can always give a little more space to the director.
Every director is completely different.
I remained a member of the section till 1947, becoming Director in 1946.
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.
The National Intelligence Director needs the authority to do the job we are asking him to do. That means power over the intelligence budget. And to be effective, to be allowed to do his or her job, they must have authority over the budget.
I tend to project my father figure onto any director that I’m working with, or mother, if I’m working with a female, or it can be confused.
What I’ve learned is sometimes it’s good not to have all the same actions and have all the same takes. The variety you provide gives the director later on in post-production the ability to construct a more interesting performance as he puts the movie together.
I thoroughly enjoyed working on Enemy of the State. Tony Scott is an important director, and has an amazing ability to express himself, and he doesn’t do it in musical terms, he does it in emotional terms. I got along really well with him.
