Quotes About Directors

Being known as a writer did change the relationships I had with directors. The rap on actors is that they always want to inflate their parts. But when directors know you write screenplays and have a different view of things, you really get invited into the huddle in a much fuller way. And those collaborations end in friendships.

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.

Yes, there are directors I admire, the mavericks. Altman. There are many good directors.

Roles came to me. I was very, very lucky in that respect. Great directors, great writers, great producers - they saw something in me that they wanted for their picture or their play or whatever it was, whether it was Edward Albee or whether it was - or Peter Hall, directors. They would come to me, thank God. I was lucky. Lucky, lucky, lucky.

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.

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.

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.

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

The biggest mistake in student films is that they are usually cast so badly, with friends and people the directors know. Actually you can cover a lot of bad direction with good acting

Directors have to push me. I have to be pushed up. Not all the time, but often.

I know that Madonna is not a first-time filmmaker, but I have worked with a lot of first time filmmakers and I have worked with a lot of inexperienced film directors so that never has particularly worried me - I find it quite exciting - but I have never worked with a director who has had so little experience of directing who was so prepared.

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

Good directors say, Here's where the play is. They stand by the heart of the matter. Some of them stand beside it.

Frankly speaking, I hate comparisons. Two individuals are doing two different films, playing two different characters: how can you compare them? It is not fair to get into ratings. It really doesn't matter what I think about other actresses; what matters is what the directors think of them when they are casting them in a project, because I think it's the director who's behind a successful piece of cinema.

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.

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.

The 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.

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.

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

I've been very lucky to work with a lot of amazingly supportive directors.

[Akiro] Kurosawa, no doubt, was a big influence. Movies sometimes more than directors have influenced me: The Grapes of Wrath, by John Ford, was an extraordinary discovery. Sergei Eisenstein, of course. Later on, [Ingmar] Bergman.

A script is utterly useless in and of itself; it's only of any worth the minute your actors, your designers, your directors come into being.

Directors should not be forced to advocate anything in their works because of their demographic identity.

I am sure I am one of 2000 film directors in the world that Tarantino admires.

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

Maybe I have just a younger voice than many other directors.

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

In the eighties, I was fortunate to be one of the young art directors that Jerry Roach, creative director at JWT New York, took under his wing. He taught me how to use typography more visually, to push against design norms and not to rely on preconceived notions of what something should look like. I learned that nuance is everything and to agonize over the details. I have Jerry to thank for driving plenty of people crazy over the years!

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.

My interest in music tends toward being orchestral music. And the repertoire of music that exists is, to me, far more emotive than what is standardly used in movie scores. That isn't always. I think there've been some excellent movie scores by excellent directors. But for the most part, watching a film, one of today's movies, I think that the emotional undertone of movie scores is pretty poor.

I'm not imprisoned in any one medium. In films I use techniques that are not necessarily what other directors attempt. When I write novels I also use techniques which can run counter to those that a novelist would use.

The radical rightwing pegs Hollywood as a leftist town, which is completely wrong. There are a lot of actors, writers, and directors who talk a liberal agenda... but all the studio bosses, for as long as there have been studios, have all been as far rightwing as you can possibly imagine.

To televisionize any serious problem, the program directors face the task of making the message 'go down smooth' until the audience is delivered to the commercial.

One of the young production assistants (on 'Terminator: Salvation') stepped over to my chair and said, 'Mr. Ironside, are you any relation to the Ironside who was in 'Top Gun'?' And I said, 'I am, yes.' And she grinned and said, 'I knew it! Talent must run in your family!' And she walked away. And all of the producers and directors kind of looked at me uncertainly, and I said, 'What are you guys so uncomfortable for? That's an incredible compliment. I do look like the father of that guy, for Christ's sake!'

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

The beautiful thing about it is that no two directors or actors work the same way. You also learn not to be afraid of discussion and conflict.

I was lucky that I was getting exposed to a lot of different kinds of films, and I was liking them all. So it seemed logical to me that you could - as in the style of the studio directors of the 30s and 40s - jump from one genre to the next, with the same satisfaction.

Work with good directors. Without them your play is doomed. At the time of my first play, I thought a good director was someone who liked my play. I was rudely awakened from that fantasy when he directed it as if he loathed it. . . . Work with good actors. A good actor hears the way you (and no one else) write. A good actor makes rewrites easy. A good actor tells you things about your play you didn't know.

Here is something no real celebrity will ever tell you: film acting is not very fun. Doing the same thing over and over again until, in the directors eyes, you get it right does not allow for very much creative freedom... In terms of sheer adrenaline, film has absolutely nothing on theater.

I love working with women directors. They don't mind making you cute.

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

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'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.

David Fincher is one of the best directors I know, so I'm really curious to see it. Really curious, and I want to hear Daniel have the Swedish accent.

In the acting game, you spend a long time fighting against what the director perceives you to be. And half the time the directors don't know.

The directors are always sharp. It's true.

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.