Brett Ratner Quotes

Miami Beach - that's where I grew up, in a middle-class Jewish family led by my maternal grandfather. Me, my great-grandmother - a Holocaust survivor, who was my roommate - my grandparents, my mom and her brother all shared a four-bedroom house.

Whoever writes a bad review, I put their name on a list, and they're going to get taken care of one day down the road. Otherwise, I don't let it bother me. The truth is, these are review-proof movies. The audiences are going to see it. My audience, our audience, isn't reading Esquire magazine to see if my movie is good or not. They just want to laugh, to be entertained, and lose themselves.

Movies are the biggest export in the world, the biggest American export. It influences people all over the world. Music and movies. That's what's exciting about what we do, the fact that it's so global. It brings people together. People don't have to understand the language to laugh at actors. They're going to laugh even though they don't understand what they're saying. Cause they're seeing it.

I love movie directors. I don't care who it is.

I ask my assistants if they're retarded all the time. When the camera is on you, of course, actors have the ability to make it real. For me, if I'm not talking, it is a problem. I have so much more respect for actors after being in front of the camera, and I realize that the hardest part is when you're not talking. Listening is harder than just acting. Listening is the hardest part.

I'm definitely not a nerd.

I got a Super 8 camera when I was eight years old, and I just wanted to tell stories - I love telling stories.

I'm trying to be a little bit more mature about my choices and think about what I want to direct next, instead of just jumping into a movie 'cause I want to do it.

Before I did 'Rush Hour,' I was a big fan of Jackie Chan movies and I had seen all of them.

When you're the director, you kinda do all the work.

At the end of the day, audiences just want to laugh and be entertained. They want to escape from their reality, and that's why we make movies, to get people to escape from the realities.

I hate the iPhone. I love the BlackBerry - BlackBerry wins in my opinion. The iPhone is a toy.

I want people to see my movies. My talent, my sensibilities are what people want to see in the movies... While I have the talent to make the kind of movies people want to see I want to continue to do that, keep making big pictures and make what I love. I’m really just making the films I want to see. There’s not a strategy.

'Vacation' means titillating my taste buds.

Movies are the biggest export in the world, the biggest American export. It influences people all over the world.

When you're fearless, you take more risks because you're less conscious of failure or what can go wrong.

People can criticise all day long, I think I've proven myself, I think I deliver. And I agree, box office does not mean a movie's good, but I feel like I'm making good movies and I'm delivering in box office.

When I was 13, Eddie Murphy was to me what Chris Tucker was to 13-year-olds when I made 'Rush Hour.' And 'Rush Hour' really came out of the fact that I grew up watching 'Beverly Hills Cop' and '48 Hrs.'

I want to print books by people in the film industry.

I learn from every movie I do because on every movie, I have a different experience.

Less money sometimes allows you to be more creative.

I love 'Guitar Hero,' and I think it's a part of pop culture.

I used to date Olivia Munn... But when she was 'Lisa,' that was the problem. She wasn't Asian back then.

I'm constantly being visually stimulated.

There's no difference between a tacky Jew from Miami and a rap star. They both want the Cadillac and the Rolex with the diamonds.

In this day and age, you need a lot of patience if you are in the movie business.

When critics or people judge, I think it's harder to make a commercial, pop movie than it is to make a pretentious art film. It's harder to reach millions of people and satisfy them and make them happy. These films kind of get ghettoized, this genre because there are so many big, big movies that are such big hits, but aren't any good. The audiences, they're not judging the style of the director, or the execution of the film. They're just looking to be entertained. They want to escape from their reality, and that's why we make movies, to get people to escape from the realities.

I love that feeling of going into a packed theater.

I love everything black, because black is cool. When something crosses over, people are like, "Oh, this is a crossover." First of all, there is no urban anymore. Pop culture is black. White kids are dressing like black kids. It's all crossed the lines now. The way I understand it is, everything black is cool. When it crosses over to white, that means it's going from cool to uncool. That's what crossover is.

I learn more from the audience than I can from anybody else. Not from what they write on the scorecards, but how they respond to the movie while they're watching it - where they laugh and where they react.

I've been a book collector since I was young, since I was a kid.

They say your childhood influences your tastes and interests, or your approach if you're an artist. So what you create, whatever you saw, whatever your childhood was like - it influences how you're going to end up.

In my public life, I'm just a guy who enjoys having fun.

I look for stuff that I'm passionate about.

I went to a public high school and most of the comedy was coming from the black kids and the Asian kids and the Hispanic kids. And, the coolest kids to me where always the black kids. They were always fashion forward and they always dressed the coolest. They were always the best dancers, and just the coolest people.

I'd want to marry Cate Blanchett, date Kate Bosworth, and spend the weekend with Elisha Cuthbert.

I'm not invited to the Vanity Fair dinner where they watch the Oscars - or even the Oscars themselves - so I sit at home and watch it with a bunch of close friends.

I’m a hypochondriac. Before I go all the way, I send the girl to the doctor and check them for everything. My doctor has a test to tell if you’re going to catch something in the future even.

I'm not tied to budgets. I'm tied to the story that I want to tell, and how much it's going to cost is up to whatever the economic situation of the studio is.

I never dreamed I would be producing the Oscars. That was a huge deal for me.

I don't have any regrets.

Producing is making films without having to work sometimes. It's still making films, but it's a different job.

My movies are pretty tight and they're pretty well-paced. I'm not one to make long movies. I don't dwell on stuff.

My mom had me when she was 16, and I was an only child, which is probably why I received a lot of love and didn't miss that my father wasn't around.

Michael Jackson doesn't really belong on this planet. He's the most important figure in the history of music. He'll be remembered far longer than George Bush will. 200 years from now, people will be talking about Michael Jackson, and no one's going to mention George Bush.

I've worked with a hundred of the biggest artists in the world, from Madonna to Mariah Carey, and he [Michael Jackson] is just beyond. He's at a whole other level, spiritually. He's got the God spot. Everyone has it, everyone has that God spot, but it's just the way he's in tune with it. He has it. It's right there, and when he starts to sing, God has just opened it up for him. That's why he's not comfortable around people and things, because he's just such a unique - he feels blessed just to be himself. "I can't believe I'm Michael Jackson."

There's no greater feeling than people coming up to me and going, "Man, my father was dying, and we went to see Rush Hour, and it was the greatest night we had in years together. We sat in that theater and we laughed for two hours without stopping. That was just a great memory that I had before my father died."

Rehearsal? What’s that? Rehearsal’s for fags. Rehearsal. Not much.