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.

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.

Bollywood directors are like cricketers where in one match you score a century, and in the next match, you are out for a duck! Moreover, very few directors are consistent in Bollywood.

When you work with directors who really love actors, who love their contribution, it feels amazing. But sometimes when you work with directors, you feel like youre in the way.

There`s only one list that`s more illustrious than the list of directors who won the Palme d`Or. It`s the list of directors who didn`t.

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.

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.

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.

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.

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.

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.

Playwrights are the most gregarious writers - to get our work done, we need actors, directors, set designers.

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.

Some directors are like it's their... nothing can change, nothing can move. I like collaborating, even when an extra has an idea, I like to bring to really have collaboration.

I love working with new directors. There's so much drive and effort. It still comes down to the character for me, but if it's a character I really want to play, I would never not do the project because of a new director.

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

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.

Directors and producers were afraid of a Dumont actor while at the same time they admired him.

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.

We make a contract within ourselves as actors or directors or writers about how much of ourselves we let into projects. You can actually figure out before you work on something how much blood you will have to let emotionally.

Personally Im very happy to be behind the scenes. I like collaboration, I like working with directors.

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.

I read reviews of critics I respect and feel I can learn something from. Right now there are a lot of bottom-feeder critics who just have access to a computer and don't necessarily have an academic or cinema background that I can detect, so I tend to ignore that and stay with the same top-tier critics that I've come to respect. I like reading a good review - it doesn't have to be favorable, but a well-thought-out one - because I very much appreciate the relationship of directors and critics.

There are some actresses who cannot function on the set without having a close relationship with their directors. Their way of communicating with the director is through intimacy. It doesn't necessarily have to do with any physical act; it has more to do with achieving a closeness that they find very valuable.

Cable TV has become where the best actors, writers and directors have gone to work because they are allowed to do character-driven stories.

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.

A lot of directors idealize their leading ladies or turn them into these objects of sexuality and beauty.

Of course I am a child of European culture. There are a number of great directors from which I learned, but there is nobody in particular I got inspired from.

I think the press is doing a wonderful job of putting the pressure on the decision-makers in Hollywood to support more female directors.

I try to attach myself to people who really inspire me, and directors who are really passionate. That way, I can give myself more fully and trust the impulse behind why the film is being made, and I can be a little more irresponsible in finding out what the character is.

All directors should have to act and all actors should have to direct, so that they can understand all these key things that come into play with whether you can meet your day.

I have many valentines. My mom and my sister and my directors. I got calls from all of them. And my friends. I respect what Valentine's Day stands for because it is about love

In France, I am so free. I have more freedom than most American directors could dare to even imagine.

Certainly as actors, and maybe as directors, you've got to hang on to something childlike. You've got to know what play is. I haven't worked with Mike Leigh, but I know him very well and there's something open in his eyes about what's in front of him. And the same is true of Alfonso in a Mexican, mad way. There's an enthusiastic response to something. Neil Jordan, the same, when he gets excited . You just want to know there's a human being in there.

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

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.

Directors are like generals, political dictators, aggressive people...And everyone in the film is always grateful if you can tell them what to do.

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 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.

You wouldn't believe how many FDA officials or relatives or acquaintances of FDA officials come to see me as patients in Hanover. You wouldn't believe this, or directors of the AMA, or ACA, or the presidents of orthodox cancer institutes. That's the fact

I happen to have worked with male directors who don't understand women at all. Not at all. I'm flabbergasted by their ignorance.

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.

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.

Directors are never in short supply of girlfriends.