Quotes About Directors

Searching out directors you respect and that you can learn from that's always the dream. That's the goal. That's hopefully where this whole thing is leading, and what better way to learn about directing and learn about what works and what I like and what resonates me than by working with a bunch of great directors.

People are mystified by it and so they kind of think, the acting community thinks they're gonna be replaced by CG characters and animators think they're gonna be replaced by performance capture (and) a lot of directors, particularly European directors, who have no experience of it.

I love to take chances. I love first-time directors. I love super-low-budget movies. I've done 80-something movies, and I want to just keep experimenting. First-time directors have new, fresh ideas, and lot of times they're risking a lot to do it, so it means so much to them. They're not just hired; they have their heart on the line, because if you've gone that far, you're probably a very passionate person.

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.

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.

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 feel I should defer to the writers and the directors because theyre the ones who have the complete vision. They see things through from the beginning to the end. Im responsible for one small part, so my scope is much more limited than theirs.

In any of the big acting cities, there are breakdowns that the casting directors put together for the projects that they're working on and then they get sent out to the agents and stuff like that. It's difficult to find projects, sometimes, unless your agent or manager is submitting you for those specific projects.

It was a pity that movies and live TV left New York for Hollywood. London theater, movies, television - until (Britain's) money ran out - were always better than ours since the city was the political capital of the country, as well as the artistic and literary one. In L.A. we've always been slightly sealed off from real life. It's no accident that two of our most interesting directors, Woody Allen and Bob Altman, are more or less settled in the real world.

I never storyboard. I hate it. I don't understand why so many directors want to make comic strips of their films.

If it gets to the Supreme Court, I'll have the directors of every museum in the country as expert testimony that my work is legitimate art.

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

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.

Directors, producers can make you look good or make you look bad.

I had been doing summer stock every summer while I was in college. We did a showcase, like most good conservatories do - monologues and things that agents and casting directors come to see. From that I got an agent.

Every director is different. One of the great things about getting to work with so many directors in one TV series is collaborating with different artistic visions and voices. And they all have something to offer and making the story better and bringing their vision to what you see in the frame.

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.

Id be lying if I said Hollywood wasnt still an ambition; its everyones, isnt it? Youre getting paid very well, youre working with great actors and great directors - who wouldnt want to be a part of that? But its not going to break my heart if it doesnt happen. This business is about doing good work rather than how famous it makes you.

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.

When I think about directing a film, the thing that stops me short is wondering if I'm a natural at it the way I think you, and PTA, and Fincher are born directors. Maybe some people's talent is in understanding the ways that film communicates, without dialogue, without plot.

The more that I can work in different mediums, the more I can grow, and learn from different actors and different types of actors and directors and different styles of acting and build a tool box.

I think women directors have to be really tenacious.

Wong Kar-wai and Ang Lee are two Asian directors I'm really fond of.

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.

The job is exactly the same, it just goes on for longer on TV. Most feature films are 35-40 shooting days. This has 10 parts, with different directors for each block. We shoot with two, sometimes three cameras.

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

I've always felt it's the directors purview to say what; it's the actor's purview to say how. It's not good for an actor to have the big picture in mind - it bollocks you up. An actor's purview is the tiny little... We measure our performance in seconds.

I also think it's still easy for us - as women, as writers and as directors and producers - to let it fall into the same patterns. Like, "and then the woman brings in the food, because the woman's the one who makes food." It's easy for that to happen, because that's what we've always known.

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 trust work, directors - I don't live in fear. All good experiences have come from trusting the universe. There is no other way to live or love. Otherwise, you create your own prison.

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

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.

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.

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!

That's the trouble with directors. Always biting the hand that lays the golden egg.

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.

It's hard not to be enthusiastic when you like what you're doing and I love what I do. I love writing stories, I love coming up with ideas for new projects and I love the people I work with, because I work with great writers and artists and directors and actors.

I'm thinking about directing, but I know it's a lot of work and I appreciate what directors do and I would like to be good at it. The opportunity has presented itself four to five times, and I usually said no because of the script.

To deny women directors, as I suspect is happening in the States, is to deny the feminine vision.

I love westerns. John Ford is one of the 10 best directors.

The studios insisted that only stars could make movies successful. And that was the real disappointment of the time. You'd see great writer-directors in the '90s becoming part of a system where financiers and movie stars could change the material. I came along just before all that happened.

There's not a lot of talking between actors - either between actors or between actors and directors. People think that they sit in rooms and talk about psychology and motivations. I don't think that happens much.

In a collaborative environment directors hire actors because they want their input, not just their bodies.

You can't rely on the approval of others. I used to always look for praise from my directors to reassure myself that I was doing a good job. I don't do that anymore.

Every time I make American film I just trust American directors and American writers.

One of the most interesting aspects of the film project was collaborating with so many people - directors, filmmakers, and writers - over a five-year period. I learned that there are two components to this.