Quotes About Directors

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.

Marvel 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.

With directors, some have a kind of in-built ability to just know how to work with actors and get the best out of actors, and some don't have a clue about acting. I think it'd be a good idea if directors put themselves in front of the camera, or even went on a six-week drama course, just to know a little bit about what that feels like.

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.

Favourite directors change, like favorite authors. I had a passion for Gide and Stein and Faulkner. But now they're no use to me anymore. I've assimilated them - so, enough, they are a closed chapter. This also applies to film directors.

There 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.

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.

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 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.

I've always been quite mature because of the way my parents brought me up. They were very good at talking to me like a person rather than a baby, and I was around so many actors and directors from such a young age because my dad is an actor. I was more comfortable with adults rather than actually being an adult child.

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.

I've always said that with a lot of the horror franchises that I've started, it's like directing a pilot. I come in, I direct the first movie and all these directors come in and direct all the sequels after me and hey have to kind of retain the look, the tone, and the characters.

The capitalist workplace is one of the most profoundly undemocratic institutions on the face of the Earth. Workers have no say over decisions affecting them. If workers sat on the board of directors of democratically operated self-managed enterprises, they wouldn't vote for the wildly unequal distribution of profits to benefit a few and for cutbacks for the many.

Different directors have different techniques in the use of films. Cronenberg is very different in the way he works with film, and how he takes the audience into his films is different than how Peter Jackson would do that or Jon Stewart. So, if you go between those artists, you shift gears and you kind of fall into the working method of that film.

The bigger the budget, the more people that you have to coordinate and it's not easy to do that always because, not only do people have trouble communicating in that way, but often there are internal disagreements and everybody is not necessarily on the same page. Even in a big-budget movie with famous actors and directors, everybody could be on a completely different page. The director has to figure out a way of getting everybody on the same page, more or less, and keeping them there.

I know a lot of directors have a whole staff of people trying to find their next film for them. I always just end up writing mine.

Sometimes directors may not give you words, you know? They may not talk at all! You've just got to use your radar to figure out how you can get to the center and not lose yourself, but still be directed at the same time.

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.

You'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.

Directors have a tendency to use their hands like orchestra conductors. They don't realize that the actor is looking at their faces, anyway.

Directors never direct me. They just let me loose.

My advice to other female directors would be to pay no heed to naysayers. Women can be united in the fact that there has always been someone in our lives who has told us "it can't be done" or "there is only so much you can do." We are constantly encouraged to think that being born a woman means we were born with limited choices and compromised dreams.

Id be lying if I said Hollywood wasnt still an ambition; its everyones, isnt it? Youre getting paid very well, youre working with great actors and great directors - who wouldnt want to be a part of that? But its not going to break my heart if it doesnt happen. This business is about doing good work rather than how famous it makes you.

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 plenty of directors who work with the same actors over and over, many more times than I have. Like I have worked with Bill Nighy more times than I have worked with Kate, but I'm not married to Bill Nighy.

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.

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.

On Ernst Lubitsch: He could do more with a closed door than other directors could do with an open fly.

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.

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

I worked for John Ford, Howard Hawks, Henry Hathaway, Raoul Walsh - I worked for some real good directors.

I can count on one hand the directors who actually directed me.

The job is exactly the same, it just goes on for longer on TV. Most feature films are 35-40 shooting days. This has 10 parts, with different directors for each block. We shoot with two, sometimes three cameras.

Now, I have big-money offers on three movies, and I have director approval. That's kind of scary,' he says. 'No directors have been attached. That's a lot of pressure on me

I love directors who talk action as opposed to emotion.

I'm not the kind of actor that gets crazy with [directors'] names, what draws me toward a project is the material itself.

Of course, at their best, movies are anti-literature and, as a medium, belong not to writers, not to actors, but to directors.

Those first memories of my modeling career are not my favorite. At the beginning, it was tough. I was very lucky, my career took off very quickly, but still. All the memories I have about first casting in general - they're not nice. Just because there's so many girls, so much competition. I don't blame those casting directors, they see so many girls and they can't be nice to everybody. But you don't feel like a person, you feel like a number.

Some directors involve waiting, and if you want to work with that particular director you're going to have to hang around.

You hear stories about directors using manipulation to get actors to do certain things, but I think when you're working with professional actors, it's all about trust. They can do anything you want, it's just a matter of them understanding what you're looking for, and the reason why.

I do believe female directors, as well as our female writer, can bring out male vulnerability that some men can't because they can't face it.

If you're creative, they let you be the showrunner, producer. The first thing my partner and I did as producers was hire ourselves as directors - because who else would hire me?

At times as an actor, it's often times unclear as to what the directors envision for a project.

I miss working with great actors, working with great directors.

I'm not one of these directors, so far, that wants to have a whole separate director's cut of these things. So far they've turned out to be kind of the length that they wanted to be.

I had some things I had to fix. It took me 14 years to do it. But it was never really fun back in the day to work with directors who were a lot older and were like authoritarian and talking to you like that.

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.