Quotes About Directors

All directors are control freaks and very obsessive. I get the feeling that directors as kids, they all have had a childhood with not too much contact with other kids. They constructed their own reality and they continue to do it. It's a funny breed, directors.

Most Chinese filmmakers grew up watching television; they watched films on television, not in cinemas. The scope of their vision is not big enough, they're not yet detail-oriented enough. You have to watch films in cinemas for years to understand the depth and scope of vision needed in filmmaking. Directors in China usually come from an academic background; they graduate as film directors. Whereas the directors from Hong Kong learn their trade on sets, beginning at the lowest rung.

Of course, even if the directors like my ideas or the designs I do, they may end up changing the story so much, that those characters have to change, or get cut out altogether, and that's just the way it is. Sometimes the directors are designers themselves, or they want to work with a character designer who will do things in their own distinct way - sometimes the most important thing I do is figure out what they don't want to do, by experimenting. Either way, whether they use my ideas or not, I get paid, so it's all good.

People 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.

I do like to work with young directors because it's such a difficult business that I think after directors have been around a while sometimes, not always, but sometimes their passion gets siphoned off because they get hurt.

The thing I love about working with first-time directors is that it's always quite shocking how little difference there is between them and directors who've been directing all their lives.

I will say that is a quality I love about great directors, which is the ability to give you one word that can inspire you. I appreciate a director with a very good vocabulary. There are so many directors that I have worked with that can give you one word.

I think film is a world of directors. Theater is a world of actors.

A great director, first, is highly intelligent. And he is also a dedicated and willing to work hard. Now those are easy things to identify. The third is the creativity, and that is very difficult to identify in advance. This is why so many of the directors who have started with me were my assistant - the first one was Francis Ford Coppola.

As long as parents and teachers in general shall fall under the established rule, it is clear that politics and modes of government will educate and infect us all. They poison our minds, before we can resist, or so much as suspect their malignity. Like the barbarous directors of the Eastern seraglios, they deprive us of our vitality, and fit us for their despicable employment from the cradle.

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.

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 directors, and there are authors. I think I am more of an author than a director.

I love working with new directors. There's so much drive and effort. It still comes down to the character for me, but if it's a character I really want to play, I would never not do the project because of a new director.

TV and film are very different media with different requirements. In a TV show, you have actors and fellow writers and directors, who are interpreting your work. With a novel, you only have ink, words and your reader.

I had a sort of bad experiences as a playwright early on, when directors were putting in huge concepts that I didn't intend, or they were stylizing something that was compromising the play, so I started to think like, "well if I'm going to fight against this, I should learn how to direct".

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.

There are only so many hilarious actors so when they cross-pollinate, people assume it's always the same actors and directors.

Now at my age I understand how sad it must have been for some directors or actors at the time the talkies began. Because, really, a whole continent disappeared.

Most actors go, I read the script and fell in love with it; I fall in love with the directors.

My big break was becoming the spokesperson for Texas Instruments. Casting directors really started giving me a chance to read for projects.

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.

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

I think stupidity in business is really an interesting thing. What winds up happening is a disconnect between your company's strategic management and then your more applied on-the-street management. I guarantee with you that the board of directors of most companies has no idea what the costs of hiring people really is in the HR department.

It is great to work on different scripts with different directors who have different styles. You get so much experience from that.

I feel very, very grateful. I'm a lucky guy, you need a lot of luck, and then when the cameras roll, you have to have this group of writers, directors, and actors that just gel, and it seems to literally be happening more and more.

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.

Women are making strides in many areas and women have mentored and supported me along the way. I think that women are underrepresented behind the camera as directors.

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.

It's not that I don't want to, it's just that there's no money in it. By that I mean the way the video business works now, the artist and the record label send out a song to a bunch of different directors and say, 'What would you do with this?' Then everyone has to come up with an idea and bid on it. For me, it's like, 'Hey, you want me to do it? Then pay me. I'm not auditioning for you.'

The lack of women directors is a sad fact of life. Kathryn Bigelows thrilling Best Director win may help turn things around.

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.

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.

It's just unfair that talent of color aren't given the same opportunities as white and male actors, directors, producers, writers, et cetera.

By the time May rolls around, I'm probably going to want to spend a month on an island. But if Steven Spielberg or Steven Soderbergh or any number of directors were to say 'Hey, there's this role, are you interested?' I'd be there in a flash

Be collaborative. I've had some of my best experiences with directors who were able to sit down and have a conversation and ask me what I thought.

I love working with women - I love women - and we need more women directors. We need more feminine sensibilities in movies.

It helps, if you've directed, to be able to write a script that is director-friendly. You're really telling them [directors], "This is how it works on this show." It takes some of the guesswork out of it.

Sexism is real and it persists in film and television. I've seen female directors openly undermined by male cinematographers in front of the entire crew

I went without health insurance until 'Roger & Me,' basically - from about age 20 till about age 35. With 'Roger & Me,' I joined the Directors Guild and the Writers Guild, and since then I've had excellent health care managed by the union.

There's no such thing as "an auteurist filmmaker." Every film directors is an auteur. We only make films that we do because we cannot put on clothes that don't fit us.

A lot of directors prefer the solitude of the editing process, but I revel in the craziness of what a film set is.

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.

I mean, there are many other directors who are probably both more skilled and excited to adapt novels or work within certain genre conventions. I'd like to do that kind of work someday, but for better or worse I'm too drawn by my own material.

I always wanted to create a site that was sports and pop culture. 30 for 30 had a big impact because I loved how that was about finding, empowering and working with these incredible directors, and I thought the same thing could work for writers.

If mutual fund directors are independent, then I'm the lead character in the Bolshoi Ballet.

The idea that all violence in movies is okay simply because it happens is bull. Directors and writers have a responsibility.