I love film – it’s like painting.
People in the film industry always want to save for a rainy day. Many early actors died in small houses with no money, and so they are insecure. My advantage is I don’t value money that much. It’s an easy thing for me to let go.
I’ve been on the board of UCLA Film and TV School, and I went to UCLA. I realized that the same movie theater that was there when I went to school, 30 years later is the same movie theater in the same condition. There was an opportunity to refurbish an existing room, and I jumped at the opportunity.
I did a film once in the Sahara. It was pretty awe-inspiring. I remember sitting up on the roof of our hotel, watching the sun go down, and all around me, for 360 degrees, was nothing but sand. It took your breath away but also made you feel tiny.
There is a lot of musical pollution in the film industry.
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.
Beautiful film music can be made relevant to any period.
The whole aspect of cinema and film festivals should be a moment to come together and celebrate art and humanity. It would be a shame if there was such a divide.
I accept all interpretations of my films. The only reality is before the camera. Each film I make is kind of a return to poetry for me, or at least an attempt to create a poem.
But it’s a strange thing when people judge you because you’re not doing some big Hollywood film. Are you suggesting I should be in ‘The Dukes of Hazzard?’ I mean, hello?
I did a film called ‘Fort McCoy,’ based on a true story of one of the few internment camps during WWII that was actually in the United States.
Filmmaking, I often like to say, is like Russian roulette. You never know what you’ll get. The only thing you can do is find solace in the fact that, irrespective of the film’s response, you work hard to make the money you do.
If the money’s right, I’ll do a film.
I felt ‘Gone with the Wind’ would last five years, and it’s lasted over 70 and into a new millennium. There is a special place in my heart for that film and Melanie. She was a remarkable character – a loving person – and because of that, she was a happy person. And Scarlett, of course, was not.
To some degree, this re-release is to let people remember what the first ‘Saw’ film was, and let them know there was a time in the ‘Saw’ history where it wasn’t all about blood and traps.
So, it becomes an exercise in futility if you write something that does not express the film as the director wishes. It’s still their ball game. It’s their show. I think any successful composer learns how to dance around the director’s impulses.
The most important film I made, in terms of its subject and the great responsibility I had as an actor, was a film I did about the founder of Pakistan called ‘Jinnah.’
In ‘Casino,’ there was this scene where Bob De Niro tape-records Sharon Stone’s phone call. Then he asks her about where she’s going, and he catches her in a lie. It was a great scene, especially for Bob’s work, but we found that, in light of the whole film, it wasn’t needed.
The dynamic range of the digital camera is pretty crappy compared to film, but now film is not great because the labs have closed. It’s going to hurt a lot of the movies that we did in this gap because I think they are going to look very old very soon.
During the middle of sophomore year, my friends and I would get bored at lunch, so we would film videos on my computer webcam of us dancing in the gym to Christmas music.
‘Matilda’ was my favorite movie to film and my favorite to watch, as well.
Always think twice before you decide to do anything for a film. It may seem like a career-changing idea, but think of your family and your future before doing anything risky. Train properly, because looking strong and being strong are two different things.
When I’m finished with a film, I’ve been living with it, we’ve been dubbing it, recording to it, and so on. You walk out of the studio and, ‘Ah, it’s finished.’
What he’s done is recognise the cinematic nature of the book. It’s beautifully realised – it’s a beat film.
This film ‘Hero’ talks about the peace of Chinese people.
You can’t make anything without making mistakes, do you know what I mean? Robert De Niro’s in the ‘Rocky and Bullwinkle’ film. There’s a lot of far greater people than me who have made mistakes in their careers… There’s loads of people who have made stuff that isn’t good and never get asked about it.
It’s always good to show that what you’re doing is who you are, what you see on film in the regular season is what you’re seeing at the Senior Bowl.
The average Hollywood film star’s ambition is to be admired by an American, courted by an Italian, married to an Englishman and have a French boyfriend.
In the film business, it’s basically honor among thieves.
You really have to be careful with the clues you lay into the film – if they’re too heavy-handed, or you’ve pandered to a slightly stupider audience, then you’ve spoiled it for the people who are even slightly smart.
Having done movies in Malayalam, Telugu, Tamil, and Hindi, I have been accepted both in North and down South. I don’t believe in divisions. I like to believe that I am working in the Indian film industry.
As a Western, ‘The Magnificent Seven’ was a pretty good film. I don’t think it was as interesting or as multi-faceted as ‘Seven Samurai.’
I wanted to do something in film. I wanted to make my own movies. Something clicked in my brain, like, ‘Oh, I can physically act! I can go on open casting calls and audition for something.’
I think the only time I doubted myself was my senior year in high school. I was not offered a Division I scholarship. I remember a scout from Ohio State coming in and looking at my film. He was all excited to meet me. Then he met me and I was 5’10” and he said that I was not a Division I quarterback.
You get an image after you act in a film, but it is not necessary that you last long because of that image.
I feel like a lot of my past career was going to film school, making a lot of different kinds of movies. I made a bunch of comedies, I made one drama and I made a couple musicals.
In film, I find it very useful always to do some preparation before you start rehearsals or start shooting, because there’s so much that’s against you on a film set.
It’s the difficulty we had with Mr. Bean, actually, when it went from TV to film. You certainly discover that you need to explain more about a character.
The first book I remember loving was ‘Grug and the Big Red Apple.’ The first film I saw in the cinema was ‘Grease.’
Well the Bombay film wasn’t always like how it is now. It did have a local industry. There were realistic films made on local scenes. But it gradually changed over the years.
‘The Custodian’ was my first film, and there were so many lessons to learn in that week. It was really fun, but for me, I look at it as a training film, and I’m not really proud of my work in it.
I just see myself as a guy who’s trying to make a film or, make art.
It irritates me so much the way people talk about soaps because it is far more difficult working on a soap than it is on a big studio film.
I was making a film on Muhammad Ali in 1964, and I went to Miami to film everything around the fight for the world championship with Sonny Liston. I had the good luck of flying down to Miami, and there was one empty seat, and the guy sitting next to this empty seat was Malcolm X.
The adrenaline of a live performance is unlike anything in film or theater. I can see why it’s so addictive.
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.
I think it’s really difficult to justify converting a film that wasn’t shot in 3-D into 3-D. I really do believe, as does James Cameron and all the people who are actually pro-3-D, that you have to go out and shoot it that way. You have nothing but compromise if you don’t.
I’ve always been sort of addicted to genre-jumping. I’ve never been in the mood to do the same thing I did last time. Hence, me going from ‘Big Love’ to romantic comedy, to period film… I can’t sit still.
A Fantastic Woman’ has been seen as very interesting and entertaining. The film has had very good reactions. We are very surprised and delighted how the characters have connected with so many people.
The last scene in ‘Moonlight,’ that’s one of the most extraordinary things I’ve ever seen on film in my lifetime. You see two men showing such tenderness towards each other. And it’s bold; it’s deep. It’s complex. It’s profound.
TV and film has defined my entire life.
It might kill you to say it, because the film really takes on the Catholic Church, but I do think there is a sort of affection for certain rituals, and an authenticity to the presentation of those rituals, in ‘Mea Maxima Culpa.’
Film music should have the same relationship to the film drama that somebody’s piano playing in my living room has on the book I am reading.
No matter how slow the film, Spirit always stands still long enough for the photographer It has chosen.
I always maintain that the film industry and film people across the globe are more or less the same.
