Noah Baumbach Quotes

How you start the movie is critical. And how often you feel that there's no reason for how it's starting.

When I was a kid, I would fantasize about my own funeral.

I realize how much I rely on the actors to really know the lines because I tend to forget what they are exactly, even though I've written them. I don't have them memorized. But when it's going well, there is that point where the actor starts to know more about the character than I do.

I think I've always been drawn to the notion of talk as cinematic.

I've had times in my life when I really haven't been able to figure myself out.

I think it's always interesting how music means different things to different people, and people who overthink it are looking to in some ways show off with music, versus people who just respond to a song and decide to sing it.

I'm interested in the way major events don't necessarily announce themselves as major events. They're often little things - the drip, drip of life that changes people or affects people.

I live in Manhattan now, because, in a way, it was my fantasy.

It's nice being friends over a period of time with people whose music you like so much, or other filmmakers, seeing people change, go through trials

I thought at the time of my parents' divorce that I was upset by deeper, more profound things and I was just taking it out on the joint custody agreement. But that disruption was bad enough. That was a huge deal for a teenager.

There are the people who overthink making mix CDs and playlists, and how that works generationally is all really interesting to me.

I love black-and-white movies that are about contemporary subjects.

I get a lot of responses to my movies. Some people say, 'Oh, I thought it was really funny - I hope that's okay!' And my answer always is 'Yes. It's totally okay.'

I think all my movies are about transitions to some degree.

Being funny, in some ways, is about being connected to psychology.

A lot of black-and-white films generally have a color version that will be used for TV.

When I meet certain filmmakers, sometimes you sit down and you do have some kind of shorthand. It can be fun to see them as someone who has been through similar experiences, but also as someone who just loves film. You can talk with them about films in a way that feels really free.

Being articulate, my parents could make anything sound reasonable.

I watch movies all the time, so it's hard to pick certain specific directors that have inspired me in the aggregate.

There are days when you're in a good groove and the actor really understands the part and comes as prepared every day as you are and is so inside it. And then there's the day where, for whatever reason, it's just a harder slog. And I feel like those are the days where all the preparation and everything becomes more necessary because you have to find a third route there.

I suppose some studio executive would say it's death for a comedy if people aren't all laughing in the same places, but I find with my movies that people laugh in very different places. I can't control it.

We all have these notions of cool that come about at different points in our lives, and it's interesting in how it evolves or doesn't evolve in different people.

I used a video camera, and shot on film cameras at school and stuff, but I had a lot more training as a writer. I kind of live like a writer. I get up and I write. I've done that my whole life.

I was late to the Knicks. My dad was a big fan. But I first started watching baseball; I became a Red Sox fan. My dad was a Mets fan. I wanted to have my own team and league.

I'm always looking for overlooked post-Dylan singer-songwriter records from the '70s.

I've always felt some kind of connection to people who are kind of over-smart. People who over-think things to the point of some sort of paralysis, and I think that certainly can be me on any given day.

You can be aware that something is idiosyncratic, and give it to a character, but keep doing it.

A film set becomes its own family anyway, and all family dynamics come out during a shoot. The trick is hiring people who know how to handle that.

I'm curious how people build up the codes that they live their life by, and how they come to think that that's the best way for them to function.

I guess I'm interested in people who are very sophisticated in intellectual ways, while being completely off the mark in emotional ones, with huge blind spots in terms of their own behavior.

It's kind of a crazy art form, movies, in that you have to get it right the day you do it, generally.

It's kind of major, learning to drive. I feel like it kicked up other stuff in my life.

I kind of live like a writer. I get up and I write. I've done that my whole life.

I don't like when you necessarily know that this is the end of the movie. I like when a movie ends abruptly. You go through this, and some of the scenes are uncomfortable, and some are funny - and then suddenly it's over.

I like to try to shoot in the city in a way that allows the city to go about its business while we're shooting, and that's always a challenge because unfortunately people on the street don't know not to look in the camera or interact with the actors.

I didn't train in directing; I talk to actors the way I talk to anybody.

Anyone who's putting money into your movie would always rather you cast well-known people.

I do think it's a very good way to describe what a great actor does. You're both acknowledging the authority of the director and the necessity of the actor to push back and find their own voice.

I try to procrastinate, if I can, productively, like I'll work on something else as procrastination. Or I take a walk. Because often I find, if you get out, more things come to you.

We expect forty-year-olds to have grown up at some point, and to be engaged and adult and take responsibility, and doing nothing would seem to go against that.

I like shooting in New York because I have such a connection to the city. I have so many memories there.

It's always really special to be at the New York Film Festival, and always a real privilege.

There was a telemarketing job one summer in high school that I was rejected for. I still walk by the building that I actually had the interview in. It's still in New York, and I always think about that job and why I didn't get it.

I like the way corduroys feel. I like the sort of jean aspect of corduroys, but also the texture of them. They probably remind me of my childhood, too, I think. I wore cords, and my dad had a corduroy jacket.

I don't agree with the idea that my characters are unlikeable.

Friends of friends had bands in college or in their early 20s and had a moment where they had some kind of interest from a record label or manager. It's always interesting how people handle those decisions and those moments.

I made two movies very young, and then I had trouble getting a movie made, and so - which was both, I think, a plus and a minus. It was a minus because it made me unhappy.