Quotes About Directors

A lot of new American directors have had mentors who have given them advice. And some of them have had the way paved for them by huge Hollywood directors who saw a younger version of themselves.

Great directors turn in mediocre work and first-time directors turn in exceptional work. No matter how good a person can talk about what he wants, you never know.

I go where the material is, and I feel like I'm looking for really strong directors. That's the key ingredient. There are some directors I would move the sun and earth for, or stop the rotation of the planets, just to work with them.

The hardest thing for a film actor, especially if you are in a lot of the film, is sustaining energy for the entire length of a production. It's quite tough. With acting, it's not the same as directing. Directors work the exact same hours; directing is incredibly exhausting. The only difference is that directors aren't required to have bursts of energy and focus. They're probably focused the entire day. Actors have this thing of "stop/start." That can be quite draining, actually.

I like bold directors. I like directors that go against the norm in a way.

There have been directors that I did not enjoy working with, but for the most part I realize that I have been unbelievably spoiled in my career because I have worked with some of the greatest, greatest directors ever.

My height can be a problem. A lot of directors and photographers are sometimes not happy because I'm pretty tall and especially if I work with short actors the difference can be pretty massive.

As you're growing up, it's odd, because directors don't expect you to grow up. They think you'll be young forever, but as an actor, there is an awkward period when you're too young for old or too old for young, and it can be an odd time.

What I've grown to hate in my 'old age' is shouting directors. I find anybody who screams and shouts to be difficult to work with... especially because the people who scream and shout tend to do it at runners, and not at the main actors. They make a great amount of noise and it's often at someone who is an easy target. I love working with people who are calm, even if my role is peripheral. I like people who realise that this is just a film... that we're not going over the top in No Man's land and screaming for our lives. There's just nothing to be gained by volume.

I love being involved in all of the creative stuff; I love talking ideas with directors. Anyone with an imagination can create something fun.

There are directors who desire to be artistic. It is pathetic to compare the seriousness of their aim with the absurdity of their attainment.

The assistants in France are not like they are in the States. Assistants are much more close to the film directors, and they used to have a kind of very artistic task. They used to do the casting, scouting, and so forth.

If it were up to the executives, they probably wouldn't have directors at all.

I've certainly worked with really great directors who haven't acted.

Nancy has her vision and she's a formidable force to be reckoned with, and that's similar to most of the male directors I've worked with. The only difference is probably inbetween scenes, gossiping with Diane Keaton, Frances McDormand and Nancy Meyers about who's had Botox and who hasn't.

If it gets to the Supreme Court, I'll have the directors of every museum in the country as expert testimony that my work is legitimate art.

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.

The best thing an actor can be is flexible, because all directors are different and all actors are different.

Sometimes I get insecure about being a real director because I look at the great directors, and they have such command. But maybe that keeps me critical of myself. Maybe it keeps me moving forward.

I believe that the confidence, really being okay with myself, and really being okay with my gift have grown over the years. It just came with time, and it came with getting my feelings hurt, a few times, and realizing to stop performing for people but if perform for God, who gave you the talent, then you can care less about what any casting directors, producers, or what any of them think. You're doing it for a higher purpose. If they don't like it, that's okay! God does.

In my own experience of male and female directors, people have a much, much harder time taking a direct command from a woman. It's somehow very difficult for people.

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

After I saw a couple of pictures put out by my fellow comedy-directors, which seemed to have abandoned the fun in favor of the message, I wrote Sullivan's Travels to satisfy an urge to tell them that they were getting a little too deep-dish, to leave the preaching to the preachers.

There's nothing worse than a director that keeps changing their mind. Because, unlike the directors I work with, I'm not decisive at all.

I'm a little older and I'm gonna do a bunch more movies and then they're gonna put me in a home for old directors.

You're in a movie, so you have to think about how something plays. It's not like you're thinking about how an audience is going to react. You're trying to present the story. You're trying to illuminate the lives of these people in the story. So I'm thinking about how my behavior as this character best illuminates what's going on with them in this moment in time. I always say it's sort of the director's job. People think that the directors direct actors. No. Really, what the director's doing is directing the audience's eye through the film.

I've figured out what to do so far, but it's always the next thing you come to where the man with the bucket of ice cold water is waiting - whoosh! in your face. That's why you work with directors who know what to tell you to do.

That excites me, working with really excellent people, be it wonderful directors or actors or cinematographers and especially writers. My work life is going to a set and having these great experiences and coming home shifted by them.

I feel like some of the best talent is on TV right now, with the writing, acting and great directors.

Having been a child actor, I remember how directors would trick me to get good performances out of me. I don't think you need to do that.

As a journalist, I would talk to writers, directors, creative people, and discover that for an awful lot of them, the moment they became successful, that was all they were allowed to do. So you end up talking to the bestselling science-fiction author who wrote a historical-fiction novel that everybody loved, but no one would publish.

I have been incredibly fortunate to be able to work with good directors and for me it's not really a plan each time I'm on a set with one of them; I think about what I can learn from them because I'm very aware that my filmmaking skills are very modest.

We, as women, often believe that we have to endear ourselves by acting modestly. But that leads personnel directors to think: Anyone who gives themselves away so cheaply cannot be very good. On that point, women need to get much, much more self-confident and tough.

I have worked with some very great directors.

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

Directors are always changing things at the last minute. Actors will do a scene, and the director will say, ‘Okay, that was perfect, but this time, Bob, instead of saying “What’s for dinner?” you say, “Wait a minute! Benzene is actually a hydrocarbon!” And say it with a Norwegian accent. Also, we think maybe your character should have no arms.

Paris is the playwright's delight. New York is the home of directors. London, however, is the actor's city, the only one in the world. In London, actors are given their head.

I've never played a Dane in a movie. I've had offers to be in Danish movies, including for some good directors, but I either had a job at the time or, when I was available, the movie just didn't happen. Hopefully someday I'll do one.

It's strange - some directors are really talented but they can be so precious when it comes to letting you be a part of it.

Choosing a Board of Directors based on race and gender is a lousy way to run a company.

I never had any classes or went to theatre school like a lot of actors, so all of my training has been on stage with different directors. That was a pretty good school room.

A political convention is after all not a meeting of a corporation's board of directors; it is a fiesta, a carnival, a pig-rooting, horse-snorting, band-playing, voice-screaming medieval get-together of greed, practical lust, compromised idealism, career-advancement, meeting, feud, vendetta, conciliation, of rabble-rousers, fist fights (as it used to be), embraces, drunks (again as it used to be) and collective rivers of animal sweat.

I want to work with great directors. I want to work on good material with good actors. I've probably done 20 movies at this point and a lot of independents. It's been an incredible ride and I love it and I'm just going to keep going and doing what I'm doing.

Amazon has included me in an opportunity to provide top-shelf television-style programming live on the world's computer screens. To hold forth with the industry's very best actors, directors, musicians, authors - I'm thrilled to be on the cutting edge of this.

It's great the way the old-time directors used to manipulate the hell out of you. You see someone dying and all of a sudden a ghost would come out and they go walking hand in hand up the stairway.

Blockbusters run the mainstream industry. We may never again have a decade like the 1970s, when directors were able to find such freedom.

I think since I did Monster I really started understanding how hard it is for first time directors. I think there's a lot of great stories out there, but it's high risk.

I think I've grown up in an era where character acting on film has become less desirable for the producers and directors and therefore the audience. They have got used to the people that those actors really are.