Popular quotes about Directors! Wisdom and inspiration are here! | page 13
It's entirely to do with personality, I think. There are good directors who talk a lot, bad directors who talk a lot, and good directors who don't say much and vice-versa. It just depends on whether people respond to that personality and whether people have a willingness to do something for them.
Colin FirthMarvel has this tradition, and I think that Sony has this tradition too, of hiring directors for Spider-Man who are dramatic directors. That are directors who are interested in human beings, in characters, in drama, and who are really good with actors. That kind of feels like a Spider-Man director to me. And because Spider-Man is always as big as the films that are being made at Marvel, it always is character and story. You can never take that out.
Amy PascalWhen I first started out, it was very, very difficult to even get in the room with directors or casting directors because they would see that I hadn't been to drama school and wouldn't want to see me. Now, I feel like it's changing. We have this new generation of a lot of writers, directors and actors who are just breaking through, and they're doing it for the passion.
Kaya ScodelarioMost directors, I discovered, need to be convinced that the screenplay they're going to direct has something to do with them. And this is a tricky thing if you write screenplays where women have parts that are equal to or greater than the male part. And I thought, 'Why am I out there looking for directors?'โbecause you look at a list of directors, it's all boys. It certainly was when I started as a screenwriter. So I thought, 'I'm just gonna become a director and that'll make it easier.'
Nora EphronThere 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.
Jack NicholsonPeople are mystified by it and so they kind of think, the acting community thinks they're gonna be replaced by CG characters and animators think they're gonna be replaced by performance capture (and) a lot of directors, particularly European directors, who have no experience of it.
Andy SerkisI think film is a world of directors. Theater is a world of actors. Or, theater is for actors as cinema is for directors. I started in theater. Filming is as complete as directing film. In theater, you are there, you have a character, you have a play, you have a light, you have a set, you have an audience, and you're in control, and every night is different depending on you and the relationship with the other actors. It's as simple as that. So, you are given all the tools.
Diego LunaFemale 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.
David OyelowoSometimes, when you work with directors who have done it a lot and are established in the business and know the game, there are all these rules that they have. First-time directors will allow you to come in with choices. They're not so jaded by actors that they're like, 'Ugh, just do your job, man.
Jake M. JohnsonThere are directors, and I think this is true of all directors, it would be true if I was a director - If the actor didn't want to do what I was suggesting, I would let him do it his way, and then I would say to him, "Just give me one where you do what the director wants", and that, of course, is the take that's used.
Ian MckellenSome directors are very free and some directors are very specific. It seemed like doing a play.
Michael PittTelevision 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.
Michael J. BassettI 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.
Catherine HardwickeTelevision 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.
Brian BaumgartnerA lot of the best acting training I had was in junior high and high school. We had very demanding directors and did real plays. You put our plays up against any theater troupe of any age, and they usually did pretty damn well.
Jello BiafraUnlike a lot of British directors, I hadn't done any theater. But, I had a great mentor who said, "What you're looking for is exactly the same thing you've done in your documentaries, which is moments of emotional truth.
Susanna WhiteA lot of times passion projects or films are difficult to make because they don't have proven directors attached to them.
David DuchovnyThere's no director or actor that I want to work with more than anyone else, other then maybe Johnny Depp, who I really would love to work with. I don't view any directors or actors above regular people, so I'm just happy to work with anyone, as long as they have talent.
Callan McAuliffeOne thing is certain: the humility of faith, if it is followed by the proper consequences-by the acceptance of the work and sacrifice demanded by our providential task-will do far more to launch us into the full current of historical reality than the pompous rationalizations of politicians who think they are somehow the directors and manipulators of history.
Thomas MertonPedro'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.
Penelope CruzPersonally Im very happy to be behind the scenes. I like collaboration, I like working with directors.
Mark MothersbaughThe work is the work. The work is not me. I like the anonymity that directors can have about their films. Even though it's my voice, I'm a storyteller.
Frank OceanYou've got to be flexible. Directors do a massive amount of planning and homework, and if after all that your director decides to throw it all out of the window and shoot spontaneously, then you must follow his lead.
Michael CaineNow 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
Fred SavageThe 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.
Noomi RapaceI think, a lot of times, directors assume that whatever they get from you the first time, whether it be at an audition or on set, is all that you can bring.
Zoe Kazan[In relationships with a directors] I want to be able to give and take, and I can't name what it is: respect, energy, investment in the task, focus, humor, intelligence, but I always feel responsible for taking the money.
Harrison FordI try to attach myself to people who really inspire me, and directors who are really passionate. That way, I can give myself more fully and trust the impulse behind why the film is being made, and I can be a little more irresponsible in finding out what the character is.
Willem DafoeThe good thing about recording everyone separately is it gives the directors more control - they can change one character's lines in a scene without having to re-record everybody, and the story changes a lot before the movie comes out.
Mark WaltonAll 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.
Paul HaggisThere are a few directors around who I have some excitement about spending my $7 at the theatre watching their movies.
Sean PennIn some ways, it's easier to go from short form to long form than vice versa. I used to make 30 second 'movies,' and I think if I only did long form I would find it difficult to adjust to that short a length. 'I gotta say something in 30 seconds. Forget about it!' There have been directors who have done commercials over the years, but they seem to be the exception.
Joe SedelmaierBecause I've always aspired to direct and produce, I've literally worked with about 200 directors and countless producers, so what I appreciate is how, through osmosis and through actually asking questions and through people offering wisdom, there's a lot in there.
Malik YobaAs 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.
Neil GaimanBoards of directors are allowed to work together, so are banks and investors and corporations in alliances with one another and with powerful states. Thatโs just fine. Itโs just the poor who arenโt supposed to cooperate.
Noam ChomskyMy dad is an engineer by trade but worked a lot with the people in the Indian film industry when I was growing up. He started out distributing films from India here in the '70s because there was no place to go for people to watch movies from the homeland. So he developed a network of actors, writers, directors, and musicians that became his friends and that he would tour around the country with, doing stage shows of the musical numbers from their films.
Meera MenonThree directors whose work directly influences mine are Paul Thomas Anderson, Darren Aronofsky and Susanne Bier (her Danish films). You'll notice that they all don't make feel good movies, same as me, and their films are always visually simple but beautiful (and I hope mine are!).
Chika AnaduI 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.
Nicole HolofcenerObviously, I've been very lucky in general in my career, but I feel that I've been very lucky in terms of having directors come along at the right times who have taken me to the next level of where I needed to be.
Daniel RadcliffeYou wouldn't believe how many FDA officials or relatives or acquaintances of FDA officials come to see me as patients in Hanover. You wouldn't believe this, or directors of the AMA, or ACA, or the presidents of orthodox cancer institutes. That's the fact
Hans Alfred NieperThere's very exciting directors who haven't made a feature yet. That's what's cool about the job - the ever-changing landscape of people you could potentially work with.
Jamie DornanIt 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.
Helmut Newton