Quotes About Directors

Some directors can tell stories and it becomes very intimate and small, and it's almost like a secret. Some directors have the gift of finding a way to show it and tell the story, in a way that brings in the audience.

Sometimes, when you work with directors who have done it a lot and are established in the business and know the game, there are all these rules that they have. First-time directors will allow you to come in with choices. They're not so jaded by actors that they're like, 'Ugh, just do your job, man.

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.

Some directors are very free and some directors are very specific. It seemed like doing a play.

I think directors should be confident in their leadership capabilities. I think directors should be confident in what they want to do.

It's not often I get to do a film that turns out good. Plus, there just aren't that many great directors out there. There are a thousand different decisions that need to be made with each script and it's the good directors that can make those decisions. It's a long and complicated process in regards to what looks good on paper. Working on a bad film can be fun too. It can be a good exercise that gets you writing.

Television can become a bit of a treadmill for directors. You come in, nobody knows you, the actors are already doing what they're doing, and you're just one of a number of directors who comes in.

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.

Personally, I can't stand violence. In any standard American mainstream movie, there's 20 times more violence than in any one of my films, so I don't know why those directors aren't asked why they're such specialists for violence.

I think that Hollywood should also be influenced by directors from Hong Kong. You see how Quentin Tarantino is really the example of how you can develop, and how you can go ahead if you accept the existence of different cinematic cultures. There you have Quentin playing with kung-fu. That's why the independents are the most interesting.

A lot of times passion projects or films are difficult to make because they don't have proven directors attached to them.

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

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.

Being on a set where the director has lost control is just sickening. No one goes the extra mile, theres a lot of eye-rolling... it just breeds inertia. If a director is in control, the crew follow their leader. But the second anyone senses the directors are not sure, people just swoop in.

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

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.

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.

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.

The best thing an actor can be is flexible, because all directors are different and all actors are different.

I'm just trying to choose interesting, quirky projects or things with interesting directors or just movies that have a lot of people I like attached to them so I know I'm going to have a good time.

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.

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

Usually directors hire me because I'm what they are looking for. But once in a while, and it's very rare, they will hire me and then try to make me over.

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

I think part of the fun of being an actor is getting to work with different directors and seeing their take on it, what they're passionate about. They all have different ideas about your character.

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.

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

I think that for a lot of actors - especially American actors - to get line readings and to be told and have your director literally act out the part for you is sort of discouraging in a way. It's a very Eastern European thing to do - a lot of directors that I worked with in Russia did that as well. And, I never took that as an insult, as many actors tend to do. To me, I think it's just offering a certain energy - offering their flavor - and, instead of trying to sort of decode and communicate it to you, they just show you their flavor of what it should be.

I always have directors who are somewhat frustrated because they'll reference a beautifully obscure film from the '50s or '60s or '70s, and I've not seen it.

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

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.

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.

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.

There's a paraphrase about Orson Welles saying: "Great films are made by great directors and the rest are made by everyone else." I've been very lucky... before I start insulting the profession of directing, but I think a good director is everything and a bad director really is nothing at all.

Movies always fascinated me. They are an endless source of inspiration. There are countless images by great directors that made a profound impression on me, and I see film as a sublime example of teamwork.

As I continue through my acting career I tend to wish I were a little shorter and a few pounds lighter so casting directors would call me in for more diverse roles.

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.

Alejandro Amenabar is a different kind of director than I lot of the directors I've asked for. He really asks you to enter his dream as opposed to, you know, a guy like Sidney Lumet or something is going to ask you to create a character almost like a documentary. He wants you to make the people really real and he's going to capture it like a documentarian.

I believe you can never stop growing and learning and I've been very fortunate to have been working since I was 10 or 11-years-old. I have learned so much throughout the years working with amazing directors and great actors as well. This was really a huge step for me because it's very different from anything that I've done before but I think the biggest difference here is that the cast we were surrounded by in this movie was unbelievable.

I don't come to work as an actor. There are many directors who can direct without ever having acted and do a great job and connect with their actors and lead them to excellent performances without themselves having had an acting background.

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.

One of the great things about this cast is that we've been able to take actors of relatively the same age group that would never usually meet. You know, like bridging the comedy/drama world that for some reason casting directors never really want to bridge or you get into one community and that's kind of it.

There was an interesting article in Los Angeles Magazine about women directors. A woman director makes one bad independent film and her career is over. Guys tend to get an opportunity to learn from their mistakes.

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.

Growing up and applying to college, I just imagined that I would study acting. But then, once I went to college, I realized I was more interested in all the aspects of filmmaking as opposed to all the aspects of theater, which is what you would have to do if you studied acting at a liberal arts school. And so I thought, "Oh, I'll meet directors and filmmakers, and I'm an actress, so I'll become friends with them and hopefully be in their movies." And then It worked!