Quotes About Directors

I don't see myself as one type of actor. When you get one role, you start to get cast in that role for awhile because that's what people have seen you do, and have hopefully seen you do it successfully. And so, it becomes an easier thing to see you as, for casting directors and directors, and they start to think of you as that particular person or type of character. But, for me, I'm just an actor, first and foremost. The actors I respect are the real character actors, who are the real chameleon actors that completely change from role to role.

There are many directors in the middle range who've made mostly successful pictures, and then there are a few great directors who've had some successes and some failures. I suppose my life would be smoother if I wasn't almost totally enamored of the latter category.

I would say it was the directors. We have to give credit to the directors for this, because in the script, we just said, "Gru's Minions do this or do that" in the initial draft. And then, they came up with the characters' design and the philosophical concept of the Minions. And then, we started writing to that. We have to give a lot of credit to them.

Female directors, directors of color are a big thing for me, which are both important voices and potent voices that need to be heard. That's how I want to engage myself as an actor going forward.

I worked with young directors all my life, only young directors.

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.

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

It is universally agreed that Jean Renoir was one of the greatest of all directors, and he was also one of the warmest and most entertaining.

I believe that our world needs an instrument of global action as never before in history. I believe that the United Nations is the instrument for securing peace and for giving people everywhere, in poorer countries as in richer, a real stake in that peace by promoting development and encouraging cooperation. But the United Nations is only an instrument, an actor in need of props and cues from its directors, And so I will paraphrase Winston Churchill: Give us the tools-the trust, the authority and the means-and we will do the job.

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

Unlike a lot of British directors, I hadn't done any theater. But, I had a great mentor who said, "What you're looking for is exactly the same thing you've done in your documentaries, which is moments of emotional truth.

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

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

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 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.

Saying directors don't write because they don't type is very wrong, it's like saying Dylan doesn't write music because he doesn't write notation.

I've worked with a lot of directors, some of them you wouldn't really attach the word 'artist' to their name.

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

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.

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.

Different directors have different techniques in the use of films. Cronenberg is very different in the way he works with film, and how he takes the audience into his films is different than how Peter Jackson would do that or Jon Stewart. So, if you go between those artists, you shift gears and you kind of fall into the working method of that film.

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.

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

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.

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

When you can sit down with a plain sheet of paper in front of you and make some notes, and, little by little, you see it take shape and become a concept for a movie or a TV show. That's a real thrill. You watch it go from notes on a paper to a meeting with writers and directors and actors. I can't think of anything that's more exciting.

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.

I'm very manipulative towards directors. My theory is that everyone on the set is directing the film, we're all receiving art messages from the universe on how we should do the film.

I've worked with very few directors who've asked of me what I asked of myself.

Every day is still exciting. I have like a very good system worked out with my editor. Some directors are in there every day, sitting there in the room with the editor. I lose perspective incredibly quickly, and so what I do is I watch...I come in the room and give very specific notes and then I go back to my house or in my office and I watch the dailies.

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.

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

I have always firmly believed that every director should be judged solely by their work, and not by their work based on their gender. Hollywood is supposedly a community of forward thinking and progressive people yet this horrific situation for women directors persists. Gender discrimination stigmatizes our entire industry. Change is essential. Gender neutral hiring is essential.

There are a few directors around who I have some excitement about spending my $7 at the theatre watching their movies.

In some ways, it's easier to go from short form to long form than vice versa. I used to make 30 second 'movies,' and I think if I only did long form I would find it difficult to adjust to that short a length. 'I gotta say something in 30 seconds. Forget about it!' There have been directors who have done commercials over the years, but they seem to be the exception.

I'd never really done comedy before Community, so getting to work day in and day out with all these great people, directors, writers, and actors, I feel like I've learned a lot.

After you do a showcase for agency managers and casting directors and you get this folder and some people had a folder that was thick and some people had a folder that was thin. And there's no fairness to it because it's not a fair business.

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.

I worked for John Ford, Howard Hawks, Henry Hathaway, Raoul Walsh - I worked for some real good directors.

I just want to play interesting characters, and I want to work with the best directors I can work with.

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.

I've had the opportunity to work with so many great directors. Different styles, as well, like Gus Van Sant. He just does the casting and the milieu and let's you do your thing, quietly. Bertolucci, who can talk to you about your internal world in quite a creative way or just say, 'Well, put your hand over here.'

Three directors whose work directly influences mine are Paul Thomas Anderson, Darren Aronofsky and Susanne Bier (her Danish films). You'll notice that they all don't make feel good movies, same as me, and their films are always visually simple but beautiful (and I hope mine are!).

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 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.

Paris is the playwright's delight. New York is the home of directors. London, however, is the actor's city, the only one in the world. In London, actors are given their head.

In my experience, directors who are the most comfortable with themselves and confident in their work give you and everybody on the crew the freedom and the space to create. It's the people who are more insecure who feel the need to control and micromanage.