Quotes About Directors

I don't have any problem working with first-time directors because all directors have to start somewhere and all great directors have had a first film. So, if you take the view that you don't want to work with a first-timer, you might miss out on a fantastic opportunity.

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.

Playing Japanese characters and being in environments that are Japanese, like a character's apartment or whatever, if you have directors or art directors who just don't know what' s what with Japanese culture, then pretty soon something's just passed through. I've been through many times where I've pointed out the incorrectness of so much of what's been done to a set.

There are times when you work with directors on set, and things are a bit rudderless, and those can be good directors.

I've always thought that as long as directors and casting directors don't see me as just Harry Potter, I'll be OK. People have shown a lot of faith in me, and I owe them a huge debt. They're letting me prove that I'm serious about this.

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 can't imagine any director directing a screenplay of mine, because the great directors all have very personal styles, and the ones that don't are not very interesting directors.

You start out with big dreams and I mean, big dreams artistically. You want to work with the greatest living directors, make a great movie. I wanted to make a great love story, I wanted to make a great epic and then you realize that the truth of it is that it's so hard to make a great film. It's hard to get a great role. Those big expectations change to realism pretty quickly. But what's never changed is my desire to work with great directors and to find projects that push me out of my comfort zone and keep me alive. I still don't think I've done my best work

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

We all like indie directors - heck, I even married one... but we're divorced now.

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

As somebody who makes his living in the movie business and wants to contribute to it, I think that the best chance I have of doing that is just consistently working with great directors.

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 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.

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.

You have to remind casting directors out here that you don't just do one thing. There's a lot of people who do just one thing.

I guess the story that best defines us [with Bud Yorkin] and our relationship goes back to the [Dean] Martin and [Jerry] Lewis show. The four stage managers on that show became major TV creators and directors - John Rich, Jack Smight, Arthur Penn and Bud Yorkin.

I just realized that I need to be a director - for two reasons. One, directors were already my heroes at this point. I wanted to; when I wanted to be an actor I wanted to work with this director. Not work with this actor, I wanted to work for this director.

I fall in love with every film while I'm doing it. I fall in love with the directors, I fall in love with the process. I don't think I could do it otherwise.

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.

With Kubrick and most film directors, they are in complete control, but one can influence them.

I think great directors really respect their actors and vice versa. That mutual respect makes the job fun instead of anything but.

Pedro'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.

I like working with different directors; it keeps you on your toes.

Most directors make films with their eyes; I make films with my testicles.

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.

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.

Now 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

I've definitely gotten to work with female directors, and I feel lucky because of that. I just feel like more voices should be represented.

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

With the most interesting directors, the cast comes together to make something magical that nobody counted on.

All the jobs I've gotten in the last two years are because directors have seen the work I've done - indie films, plays, short student films, TV - since I moved to the states in 1996. I mean, I have an entire career in Canada that nobody has seen.

The way television works is that directors come in and out, and they're not there all the time, following every character through every scene. They're vagabonds who go from one show to another.

Actors, writers, directors - that triumvirate of creativity - we have to rely and trust each other to be able to get to the final product.

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.

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

Having been a child actor, I remember how directors would trick me to get good performances out of me. I don't think you need to do that.

Because 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.

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.

Directors are our teachers, and I'm always craving to work with a great director. They're pretty much the first thing that interests me about a project. Let's put it this way: It'll take me a lot longer to read a script if there's no director attached.

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 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.

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.

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

My 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.

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.

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.