Directing is a nice job. It's the best job for me. If I had to pay money to do it, I would do it... Directing is playing. Acting.
William FriedkinThe art of movies is to allow the audience to suspend their disbelief. They need to use their imaginations.
William FriedkinAll of the films I have made, that I have chosen to make, are all about the thin line between good and evil. And also the thin line that exists in each and every one of us. That's what my films are about.
William FriedkinEvery time you run a 35mm print, it picks up scratches. It picks up dirt. Sometimes it breaks, and you have to re-splice it. You lose frames. This doesn't happen with digital or Blu-ray. I think that's great. Because I love the new media.
William FriedkinBut the audience is right. They're always, always right. You hear directors complain that the advertising was lousy, the distribution is no good, the date was wrong to open the film. I don't believe that. The audience is never wrong. Never.
William FriedkinNone of the chase scenes that I did had any opticals. We had to do all of that physically. The first thing you have to do is see it in your mind's eye. You have to envision it. Imagine someone knitting a sweater or a scarf. They either have a pattern in front of them, or they see a pattern in their mind's eye. Then it's one stitch at a time. That's what shooting a chase is like.
William Friedkin