In making movies, time is so short-because it is so expensive-that we tend to neglect the place from which the best ideas come, namely that part of ourselves that dreams. The unconscious is our best collaborator.
Mike NicholsAll the theories that acting is reacting to imaginary circumstances as though they are real, and directing is turning psychology into behavior, those are all stabs at something that can't be taught. All the great actors can't talk about what they do, and they don't want to begin to talk about it. They just do it.
Mike NicholsNo doubt you are as alarmed as I by the tragic decline in America's language skills. If 10 people read the following sentence: Two tanker trucks has just overturned in Alaska, spilling a totel of 10,000 gallons of beer onto a highway. two would find an error in subject-verb agreement, two would find an error in spelling, and six would find a sponge and drive north.
Mike Nichols