Quotes About Directors

In terms of directors, great actors make directors - Gary Oldman was great to work with, for me; Tim Roth, too. You work with Scorsese and Spielberg and they were wonderful directors, but for me, working with actor/directors is special.

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'm trying to work only with established, respected directors. I took a lot of bad scripts and worked for a lot of lazy directors, and it was discouraging to go to the screenings and see that the director had added nothing, the editor had added nothing, there was nothing to see.

I would say that maybe directors who act as well are easier with actors. I'm not saying that all directors have this, but sometimes you'll come across a director who sort of looks at an actor a bit like a kind of untrained horse that's been let out of the stable, like they might buck him.

I 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.

I really love it, I love working with directors that are very collaborative and allow me input. I've done over 75 films, it's just like you're an apprentice. You learn so much about camerawork, lenses, and I'm always talking about DPs and directors and they always give me lists. I think pretty soon, I'll be ready to move away from being in front of the camera.

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.

Somehow I got to be one of five or six actors that the directors would use as guinea pigs at this directing colloquium, where people pay to listen to and watch the directors direct.

The hardest thing for a film actor, especially if you are in a lot of the film, is sustaining energy for the entire length of a production. It's quite tough. With acting, it's not the same as directing. Directors work the exact same hours; directing is incredibly exhausting. The only difference is that directors aren't required to have bursts of energy and focus. They're probably focused the entire day. Actors have this thing of "stop/start." That can be quite draining, actually.

I feel like I've been very lucky with the directors. The characters I've been offered, especially lately, have given me the opportunity to play all of these different women. I always wanted that, and it's something that you cannot do by yourself. If you want to play a diversity of characters, somebody else has to have the imagination to give you a role completely out of the box. We depend on somebody else's trust, and these directors are giving me their trust, and I am grateful for that.

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.

My height can be a problem. A lot of directors and photographers are sometimes not happy because I'm pretty tall and especially if I work with short actors the difference can be pretty massive.

I think the perspective that small-town directors bring to films is very different.

Russian directors, we are shooting the same streets. The same things. Tom Jacobson has a fresh eye and found very interesting and very cool locations and angles and characters.

There's another aspect about the Seventies. Blazing Saddles, as wonderful as it was, sort of hurt the Western. It made such fun of them, that you almost couldn't take them seriously from that point on. That's why only Westerns that had the stink of Watergate or Vietnam could be taken seriously. There were so few Westerns made since then, from the Eighties on, that the few directors who did were so pleased with themselves and so happy to have the opportunity that they got lost in visuals, they got lost in the vistas and the pretty scenery.

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.

If you don't take it personally, the partnership between producers and directors is very intimate.

I'm only wanted by directors for the image I give off, and it makes me angry. I always wanted to be an actor and not a beauty pageant winner.

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

I've never directed anything before 'Mad Men,' so I don't feel I have any advice for the other directors.

I've certainly worked with really great directors who haven't acted.

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

I always wanted to direct. Directing is a lot more of a commitment though, a lot more time. I like directors who do very few takes, they know what they want.

Every director is different. One of the great things about getting to work with so many directors in one TV series is collaborating with different artistic visions and voices. And they all have something to offer and making the story better and bringing their vision to what you see in the frame.

Directors never direct me. They just let me loose.

I get to play a great character while working with great actors and great directors on a great show.

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

The 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.

Directors typically have three choices - you do a studio movie and get a paycheck up front, you do an independent movie, which is for your heart and you don't get paid up front and probably don't make any money on it, but it hopefully goes to Sundance and is more of an art movie, and then you do TV.

Boards of directors are allowed to work together, so are banks and investors and corporations in alliances with one another and with powerful states. That’s just fine. It’s just the poor who aren’t supposed to cooperate.

Now Tarantino is making DJANGO UNCHAINED. Everybody is telling me I am in the movie but I've not been asked by Tarantino officially. Not yet. There were many, many other Django films following mine, with other actors and directors, but there is only one Django.

I love directors who talk action as opposed to emotion.

Directors are the captains of the ship, and it's your job as the lead actor to make sure that the rest of the cast understand that by doing whatever he says.

I've worked with a lot great directors who have huge resumes, but I'm really trying to be active in my career in supporting the new generation of cinema. I like taking some time to try to support and be a part of that.

At almost forty years old, I assumed my career on camera was over. And I was certainly given that message by all the TV managers and news directors who passed on me when I was trying to get a job back in the business.

I also think it's still easy for us - as women, as writers and as directors and producers - to let it fall into the same patterns. Like, "and then the woman brings in the food, because the woman's the one who makes food." It's easy for that to happen, because that's what we've always known.

That and when you're doing live action you don't normally get to see the thing before it's in production. In this case we'd go in every couple weeks and look at animatic and sketches. The way they do it - is they'll put it up on a screen and the storyboard artist who worked on that sequence will talk you through it. Kind of like a pitch session. Then they would leave and we would sit there with the directors and say 'Alright - what if we change that? What if we do that?' It's very different from live action.

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.

Great directors can understand the staging in such a way that can make a scene come alive. Others have a certain way of pacing the scene.

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.

After Star Trek, I was with the top agencies, but producers and directors did not know what to do with me.

I don't think about the gender thing very much. But when I speak at schools, I've had female students say to me afterwards, "I never envisioned myself being a director, since I've never seen women do it." But after seeing me, they can picture themselves directing, so maybe we'll see more female directors.

It`s probably fair to say I have taken myself too seriously on some jobs. I`m sure I`m more guilty of being difficult than I`d like to remember. I don`t regret my desires; I`ve regretted the way I would communicate my desires. Maybe I`ve lost a job because of some rumor, I doubt it. But nobody good that I`ve worked with has ever said anything negative about me, because we`ve never had a negative experience. By good, I mean directors who do their homework, people that are passionate, crazy, never sleep, and do like I do and just go after it.

My advice to women directors is just to make the best work possible.

You have to give directors and cinematographers a word blueprint for visuals, but I had to learn that from experience.

People have curiosity, they have intelligence, they have interest in understanding their peers. But producers and directors of cinema have decided that the seats in the theaters have been made to transform people's minds to lazy minds.

Blockbusters run the mainstream industry. We may never again have a decade like the 1970s, when directors were able to find such freedom.

I fall in love with all the people I'm working with, women, directors, everybody. As actors, that's actually one of the real pleasures of the work. You have this weird opportunity to get unnaturally close to people very quickly.