Quotes About Directors

I don't see myself as one type of actor. When you get one role, you start to get cast in that role for awhile because that's what people have seen you do, and have hopefully seen you do it successfully. And so, it becomes an easier thing to see you as, for casting directors and directors, and they start to think of you as that particular person or type of character. But, for me, I'm just an actor, first and foremost. The actors I respect are the real character actors, who are the real chameleon actors that completely change from role to role.

You have to understand that people feel threatened by a writer. It's very curious. He knows something they don't know. He knows how to write, and that's a subtle, disturbing quality he has. Some directors without even knowing it, resent the writer in the same way Bob Hope might resent the fact he ain't funny without twelve guys writing the jokes. The director knows the script he is carrying around on the set every day was written by someone, and that's just not something that all directors easily digest.

I really love it, I love working with directors that are very collaborative and allow me input. I've done over 75 films, it's just like you're an apprentice. You learn so much about camerawork, lenses, and I'm always talking about DPs and directors and they always give me lists. I think pretty soon, I'll be ready to move away from being in front of the camera.

Female directors, directors of color are a big thing for me, which are both important voices and potent voices that need to be heard. That's how I want to engage myself as an actor going forward.

I worked with young directors all my life, only young directors.

Roles came to me. I was very, very lucky in that respect. Great directors, great writers, great producers - they saw something in me that they wanted for their picture or their play or whatever it was, whether it was Edward Albee or whether it was - or Peter Hall, directors. They would come to me, thank God. I was lucky. Lucky, lucky, lucky.

You start out with big dreams and I mean, big dreams artistically. You want to work with the greatest living directors, make a great movie. I wanted to make a great love story, I wanted to make a great epic and then you realize that the truth of it is that it's so hard to make a great film. It's hard to get a great role. Those big expectations change to realism pretty quickly. But what's never changed is my desire to work with great directors and to find projects that push me out of my comfort zone and keep me alive. I still don't think I've done my best work

You often hear this about directors, how its like having the best set of toys. This fabulous train set, the biggest box of toys that a kid could possibly have. The best directors look like a kid having more fun than youre supposed to have.

I love Leonardo DiCaprio. He just makes really great films with great directors. He has great relationships with directors but also has a great social awareness. I think he balances his work with his responsibilities to his world, the environment, things like that very well. I'm very impressed by him and I admire him a lot. And other actors like Joaquin Phoenix, I just look at him and marvel at his unexpectedness, just his work really.

Television can become a bit of a treadmill for directors. You come in, nobody knows you, the actors are already doing what they're doing, and you're just one of a number of directors who comes in.

I worked for 20 directors as a production designer, most male. I was on the set to witness firsthand a range of sometimes atrocious emotions - well-documented firings, yellings, fights between directors and actors, hookers, abusive things, budget overages, lack of preparation. A man gets a standing ovation for crying because he's so sensitive, but a woman is shamed.

Television is certainly a writers-led medium. They're the ones who are there, they're the ones that are conferencing or whatever, with directors coming and going.

Some people feel like you need to have a very specialized understanding of music to have the authority to talk about it. They are such good directors that it's perfectly possible to have conceptual and directorial and storytelling conversations about music without needing to know all the technical pieces.

I've worked with acting coaches, I've been going out on auditions and meeting with casting directors. But I'm not known as an actress.

I think that Hollywood should also be influenced by directors from Hong Kong. You see how Quentin Tarantino is really the example of how you can develop, and how you can go ahead if you accept the existence of different cinematic cultures. There you have Quentin playing with kung-fu. That's why the independents are the most interesting.

I love the work, I love being in front of the camera and working with actors and directors and creating something. For me, it's like learning everyday.

Playwrights are the most gregarious writers - to get our work done, we need actors, directors, set designers.

I've never been difficult to anybody or with anybody on a picture. Especially when you're in that nice status of hierarchy of actors and actresses who get to approve directors. Because once you make that choice, it's my belief that the director's boss.

Sometimes, directors are afraid to stop shooting, because the second you stop and say, "We got it," and move on, you'll never get another chance. And they're terrified to get in the cutting room and not be happy. So they just keep shooting.

Pedro's Almodovar different - very unique, very particular and difficult to compare to anyone else. But I've been lucky with many of the people that I've worked with. I think I've been very lucky with great opportunities - directors like Stephen Frears, Cameron Crowe and Fernando Trueba, as well as Bigas Luna, who gave me my first opportunity. There are a lot of people I would love to work with again. But, of course, I have a special relationship with Pedro and I don't think it's good to hide that.

I read reviews of critics I respect and feel I can learn something from. Right now there are a lot of bottom-feeder critics who just have access to a computer and don't necessarily have an academic or cinema background that I can detect, so I tend to ignore that and stay with the same top-tier critics that I've come to respect. I like reading a good review - it doesn't have to be favorable, but a well-thought-out one - because I very much appreciate the relationship of directors and critics.

There are some actresses who cannot function on the set without having a close relationship with their directors. Their way of communicating with the director is through intimacy. It doesn't necessarily have to do with any physical act; it has more to do with achieving a closeness that they find very valuable.

Yeah, the actors really come in as lumps of clay. We're ready to work with the directors and find our way. These guys really come in having done their work.

I've never been a fan of directors who clutter a piece with all sorts of crazy preconceptions or weird ideas.

The directors thought, They understand nothing in the real economy, in real life. They read some stupid books, and they came from the moon to the earth, and maybe in one month they will disappear.

I get to play a great character while working with great actors and great directors on a great show.

Actors, writers, directors - that triumvirate of creativity - we have to rely and trust each other to be able to get to the final product.

As an actor, I have casting issues. I'm a minority. I don't have trouble making a living, but as far as being on the food chain of the pecking order of actors, I'm not at the top of it. With the jobs that I do, there are always control issues with directors and producers.

I think that for a lot of actors - especially American actors - to get line readings and to be told and have your director literally act out the part for you is sort of discouraging in a way. It's a very Eastern European thing to do - a lot of directors that I worked with in Russia did that as well. And, I never took that as an insult, as many actors tend to do. To me, I think it's just offering a certain energy - offering their flavor - and, instead of trying to sort of decode and communicate it to you, they just show you their flavor of what it should be.

There are all kinds of directors I want to work with and all kinds of films that I want to do.

Of course I am a child of European culture. There are a number of great directors from which I learned, but there is nobody in particular I got inspired from.

Learn how to draw. It's the basis of what we [animation directors] do. Keep a sketchbook. Try making a very simple little film. Try and tell a story clearly and entertainingly. Study the way people move and animate move. Observe all you can, and try and capture that simply in a few lines on paper.

All the studios are owned by multinational corporations, which are not usually bastions of the left. So all the actors, writers, and directors - or at least a great majority of them - live in fear because we're all insecure, we all want that next job, we all want to be loved, and we don't want to piss off some studio chief who won't hire us for the next movie.

Certainly as actors, and maybe as directors, you've got to hang on to something childlike. You've got to know what play is. I haven't worked with Mike Leigh, but I know him very well and there's something open in his eyes about what's in front of him. And the same is true of Alfonso in a Mexican, mad way. There's an enthusiastic response to something. Neil Jordan, the same, when he gets excited . You just want to know there's a human being in there.

There are lots of good directors I would like to work with; I want to be inspired and challenged by them.

I was lucky that I was getting exposed to a lot of different kinds of films, and I was liking them all. So it seemed logical to me that you could - as in the style of the studio directors of the 30s and 40s - jump from one genre to the next, with the same satisfaction.

I'm just happy when directors make a movie that is really sentimental but without being maudlin or saccharine or too much like Chewels gum. I don't want to be involved in a movie that's too much like a piece of Chewels.

Directors are like generals, political dictators, aggressive people...And everyone in the film is always grateful if you can tell them what to do.

I've had the opportunity to work with so many great directors. Different styles, as well, like Gus Van Sant. He just does the casting and the milieu and let's you do your thing, quietly. Bertolucci, who can talk to you about your internal world in quite a creative way or just say, 'Well, put your hand over here.'

Here is something no real celebrity will ever tell you: film acting is not very fun. Doing the same thing over and over again until, in the directors eyes, you get it right does not allow for very much creative freedom... In terms of sheer adrenaline, film has absolutely nothing on theater.

I gotta say, the Catholic Church has churned out a lot of great artists and directors and actors, so if that's all they do, that's fine by me. If they're good at churning out tortured artists, that's great!

I had people in 'Entertainment Weekly' talking about how they wanted to throttle me because they thought I was too disgustingly cute, as if that were my fault, you know, as if that was my fault, not the fault of directors and producers and such.

It began when I was so ill that there was a good chance of dying. I promised myself that if I survived I would never again pander to a magazine's requests or follow the ideas of art directors. I would only make images which were personal, which arose out of my own life.

What I try to do is make sure that the directors I'm working with are on the same page and want to do the same kind of films. You can really protect yourself as an actor if you work with really good people. It can hide a lot of flaws along the way.

What's interesting is that producers, directors and writers tend to typecast me in terms of whatever movie they've seen me in most recently.

The most nurturing of directors can make you feel too comfortable, and you don't really push for that extra whatever.

I really enjoy the process of making movies. The only thing that really concerns me is working with great directors and actors, and that is fun and exciting.

I guarantee you that two directors that are any good can take the same story, change the name of the characters, change the name of the town, and make an entirely different picture.