Quotes About Directors

It's not that writing staffs don't change at all, but they don't change very much. Directors are freelancers. There are directors who do five or 10 episodes of a show every year for years, but most directors are freelance, they come and go.

I like to work with talented people, I must say that. That's my weakness. I really like to work with good directors. That doesn't mean I don't like to work with starting up young directors, that's fun also.

There are many directors in the middle range who've made mostly successful pictures, and then there are a few great directors who've had some successes and some failures. I suppose my life would be smoother if I wasn't almost totally enamored of the latter category.

As actors, we have the opportunity to work with many directors. Directors only work with themselves and other actors. They never know what it is like to work with another director. So that relationship that one has with a director is entirely always the king.

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.

When you work with directors who really love actors, who love their contribution, it feels amazing. But sometimes when you work with directors, you feel like youre in the way.

But, working with directors whose history is in performance, I feel like there's a different kind of focus, as opposed to directors who are more prone to being really technically proficient or visual. I feel like there are two schools of both, and a director needs to have both.

I think the best directors rarely loose their temper. I think the best directors provide you with a safe environment where they can instill you with confidence and allow you to try things out and not feel like your failing or that you're doing it wrong.

I can't imagine any director directing a screenplay of mine, because the great directors all have very personal styles, and the ones that don't are not very interesting directors.

I've turned down good directors before because I knew the part didn't speak to me and I've worked with less talented directors before because the part I had such passion for.

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.

Personally, I can't stand violence. In any standard American mainstream movie, there's 20 times more violence than in any one of my films, so I don't know why those directors aren't asked why they're such specialists for violence.

Sometimes the directors were afraid of what they brought out of me.

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.

I am open to keep on discovering new interesting projects, and little by little I have been coming across very beautiful projects with very affectionate directors.

I think all directors should be animators.

I'm very fortunate to have the privilege of working with directors like Bill Condon and Paul Thomas Anderson, who I think is one of the greatest filmmakers of our time.

I think directing yourself is a monumental task. Just to self edit as an actor, you work for some directors who don't give you a lot of feedback so you have to do that. That's a difficult thing to do as an actor.

There are a lot of scripts that you can like, but rarely are there directors attached when you're in development with something and that's stressful.

Some directors are like it's their... nothing can change, nothing can move. I like collaborating, even when an extra has an idea, I like to bring to really have collaboration.

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.

With Kubrick and most film directors, they are in complete control, but one can influence them.

Julie Taymor. She is my gold standard of stage directors. I think she has a comprehensive knowledge of theatrical form, since she lived in Indonesia, Java, Japan and France. Her knowledge of form is limitless. Whenever I get painted in a corner, I think about what form she would use, because that is what she practices. It's about accessing the theater traditions of the whole world.

I think great directors really respect their actors and vice versa. That mutual respect makes the job fun instead of anything but.

Directors, producers can make you look good or make you look bad.

I guess I'm not jaded because I still believe that there are good films out there, and there are great directors, and there are great writers. It just takes a little bit more perseverance and a little bit more time to find [them].

Now that I'm taking some time off from school, I've been reading a lot to make sure I don't forget everything. It's mostly classics and nonfiction accounts from actors, directors and writers from the '40s and '50s

Sometimes, with directors, you have to take what they say and translate it in your head, into something that makes sense to you, because you're speaking two different languages.

The weird thing is that, with actors, filmmakers and directors, it doesn't really matter if it's Robert Downey Jr., who's one of the biggest stars in the world, when you start to work, he's a hardworking actor. At the end of the day, it doesn't matter who's a big star and who's an unknown actor from wherever. It's all about the work you do.

Every day is still exciting. I have like a very good system worked out with my editor. Some directors are in there every day, sitting there in the room with the editor. I lose perspective incredibly quickly, and so what I do is I watch...I come in the room and give very specific notes and then I go back to my house or in my office and I watch the dailies.

My advice for other female directors is look for people who really appreciate your vision and are willing to genuinely support you. When it comes time to taking notes on various cuts, if you have a smart producer, listen to her notes!

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

As an actress, I think it’s important to look back and realize that we aren’t always quite as original as we think we are. There’s this grand, textured history for us over the last 100 years of incredible writers, directors, and performers.

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.

The directors that I end up having a really good time with are the ones that understand the fluidity of the medium and are interested in catching lightning in a bottle.

I just want to play interesting characters, and I want to work with the best directors I can work with.

Directors are our teachers, and I'm always craving to work with a great director. They're pretty much the first thing that interests me about a project. Let's put it this way: It'll take me a lot longer to read a script if there's no director attached.

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 guess I always knew going into the movie that casting that part would be difficult. Oliver just felt likeable. I felt it would be hard to dislike this man. I don't know why, but I'm sure other directors have felt the same when casting him. Oliver is goofy yet formidable, smart but likeable... I didn't want the character of Alex to be nasty or demonised. I wanted him to be struggling with his actions.

One of the things about Derek Jarman was that he was a painter who worked alone when he painted, but I firmly believe that one of the reasons he made films was for the company. He made filmmakers of all of us, that's the truth. I don't mean he necessarily made directors, but he made us filmmakers. Because we lived in a state of mutual responsibility for what we made.

One of the great things about this cast is that we've been able to take actors of relatively the same age group that would never usually meet. You know, like bridging the comedy/drama world that for some reason casting directors never really want to bridge or you get into one community and that's kind of it.

Have you noticed how most directors are either bald or grey-haired?

Very broadly speaking, you can put directors into two areas: One for whom you work, and the other with whom you work. And I prefer the latter, for obvious reasons.

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.

In my experience, directors who are the most comfortable with themselves and confident in their work give you and everybody on the crew the freedom and the space to create. It's the people who are more insecure who feel the need to control and micromanage.

I find it kind of weird that directors want to put themselves in their films.

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.

If you work in casting, it's sort of not cool to want to act. A lot of people think that casting directors are frustrated actors, but it wasn't true with any of the casting people I knew.