Quotes About Directors

Any filmmaker, big directors, and I'm not dropping any names - I actually have couple names I want to say, but I will not - we have a ratio. Each thing you repeat, my ratio is one to four.Actually some people are ratio one to 34. I know couple directors, big directors, they are just shooting over and over.

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've now been doing this for ten years, and I actually got to skip a stage of going to casting directors, and now I meet with the directors, either for lunch or an audition room, and I still read sides; you're never going to get around that, but I'm not the best person to go on an audition.

The director's who want to be innovative use the DVD as a tool to see what people have done in the past and you have other people who will actually take from better directors and that makes them better directors.

I like working with directors because I'm really opinionated about what things work and may not work, what audiences like and may not like, (not really) but I do have opinions about things. I like to be able to say them and then have them acted on. The director who responds to me like that, always gets my appreciation. I do appreciate it. What I find is the best directors, no matter what kind of name they have, are like that.

There are directors, and I think this is true of all directors, it would be true if I was a director - If the actor didn't want to do what I was suggesting, I would let him do it his way, and then I would say to him, "Just give me one where you do what the director wants", and that, of course, is the take that's used.

Television is certainly a writers-led medium. They're the ones who are there, they're the ones that are conferencing or whatever, with directors coming and going.

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.

There's no director or actor that I want to work with more than anyone else, other then maybe Johnny Depp, who I really would love to work with. I don't view any directors or actors above regular people, so I'm just happy to work with anyone, as long as they have talent.

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.

There are plenty of bad actors and there are plenty of bad directors. There are actors who will always be bad and there are good actors who you cry for because they're being badly directed or the material isn't good enough.

I've worked with a lot of great directors and often times they solicit your ideas.

I am impatient with directors who don't know what they want, and the way you don't know what they want is because they want to do one more. "Let's do one more." So, "What for?" I guarantee you there's not going to be a change.

Bad directors will tell you they absolutely know how to do it, and how it has to happen; there's this insecurity that leads them to feeling like they have to control everything.

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

The bigger the budget, the more people that you have to coordinate and it's not easy to do that always because, not only do people have trouble communicating in that way, but often there are internal disagreements and everybody is not necessarily on the same page. Even in a big-budget movie with famous actors and directors, everybody could be on a completely different page. The director has to figure out a way of getting everybody on the same page, more or less, and keeping them there.

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.

Most actors go, I read the script and fell in love with it; I fall in love with the directors.

The directors thought, They understand nothing in the real economy, in real life. They read some stupid books, and they came from the moon to the earth, and maybe in one month they will disappear.

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.

It takes great skill to tell a compelling story in under 60 seconds. These five directors have mastered the format, using their talent, craft and imagination to provide us with some of the most innovative filmmaking out there today.

All the studios are owned by multinational corporations, which are not usually bastions of the left. So all the actors, writers, and directors - or at least a great majority of them - live in fear because we're all insecure, we all want that next job, we all want to be loved, and we don't want to piss off some studio chief who won't hire us for the next movie.

I enjoy collaborating with all of the directors I have worked with. I love collaborating with creative people on interesting projects.

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.

As a journalist, I would talk to writers, directors, creative people, and discover that for an awful lot of them, the moment they became successful, that was all they were allowed to do. So you end up talking to the bestselling science-fiction author who wrote a historical-fiction novel that everybody loved, but no one would publish.

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.

Simon McBurney on "All My Sons" on Broadway - we had an eight-week rehearsal period and I really enjoyed the way that he prepared us to go onstage. It was different than anything I've done and it was a different way of being directed, so I tried to take my different experiences of these directors and give those to my actors.

I just want to do everything. As broad as that seems, it's kind of the plan. There are so many different genres out there to do, so many different characters to play, so many different amazing actors and directors to work with. I'm just following my gut, and if it's speaking to me, then I'm doing it.

Children of Men is a solemn, haunting picture, but it's also a thrilling one, partly because of the sheer bravado with which it's made. It left me feeling more fortified than drained. [Director Alfonso] Cuarón, the most openhearted of directors, prefers to give rather than take away.

I have worked with some very great directors.

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!).

When I look around and see how aged cartoonists continue to work on their manga and how movie directors create new movies all the time, I understand that they would never retire. And by the same token, I guess I will still be making games somehow. The only question is whether the younger people will be willing to work with me at that far point in the future.

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.

I do feel, like everyone, there's not enough female directors out there, there's not enough female producers, and would like to see more people get more opportunity, more opportunity for roles for women.

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.

Have you noticed how most directors are either bald or grey-haired?

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.

Look out for each other. I think the more we support each other as a community, the more successful we will be. I'm a part of Film Fatales, a collective of women directors who meet to share advice and provide support for each other's projects. I think the more we can build an old girls' network to rival the old boys' network, the better off we will be.

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!

I was never a villain on the stage. I always played strong, sympathetic types. My first stage role with a speaking part, believe it or not, was as a priest. It wasn't until I began acting in films that the producers and directors saw me primarily as a bizarre villain.

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.

One reason I left local news was that I was tired of the constant musical chairs among news directors.

I don't think many actors are the best judge of careers. I think generally we have good instincts about what we can do in terms of acting. And often they become directors, which I don't want to be.

Steven's Spielberg is one of the most visually talented and character-oriented directors I've ever worked with. And I learn from him every time I watch one of his movies. Good or bad - and he has made some awful movies - they're never uninteresting. He's made four or five of the greatest movies of all time. Perfect movies, like E.T. or Schindler's List or Saving Private Ryan.

I had a whole new respect for directors.