Doug Liman Quotes
-
I never want to repeat myself. I can't imagine anything else as upsetting as realizing I'm redoing something I did before. For some reason, when it comes to film, I'm very good at not repeating myself. Even though in the rest of my life, I'm constantly repeating my mistakes.
-
With 'Invisible,' I didn't want to create something that requires you to watch it more than once; I don't even expect people to watch it more than once per se. I just wanted you to have the experience and knowing that if you watch it a second time, it would be different because you would see different things.
-
I started my career wanting to make a 'James Bond' movie, and I couldn't get hired! I made 'The Bourne Identity,' and ultimately the impact of that film was that it changed the 'James Bond' franchise.
-
There's a weird intellectual approach to filmmaking, where I pose a question to myself and use the film to try and answer it.
-
My family went to the Hamptons, so I understand what happens when a slice of perfect utopia gets overdeveloped, when one way of living is replaced by another.
-
I realize I am contradictory: I have an independent filmmaker's sensibility and a Hollywood director's short-attention span.
-
I had just come off doing a lot of commercials when I did 'Go,' so a part of the fast pace and efficiency comes from the discipline I had to learn from telling stories in 25-second increments, and that type of discipline is insane.
-
I've often found, as I did with 'Bourne,' where I was inspired by the events of Iran-Contra when I designed the CIA for the 'Bourne' franchise, that the reality of how things work is usually more compelling than the superficial, made-up version that Hollywood sometimes does.
-
My characters in my movies are all flawed. You'll probably never see Tom Hanks in a Doug Liman film. He plays, you know, very earnest and unflawed.
-
It's kind of hard to work with Tom Cruise and not be aware that you're working with one of the biggest movie stars in the world.
-
The thing about TV is it's a meritocracy. I love that aspect of it - and I've had shows that have gone on the air and been canceled. I've seen the good and the bad of it.
-
What happened on 'Mr. & Mrs. Smith,' I was given a big budget and given too many choices, and I made a lot of mistakes and missteps early on until I squandered all that extra money. But then, once my back was up against the wall, I made what I consider a really good movie.
-
I got in trouble in film school at USC because one of my Super-8 movies there, in the first semester, involved a snowmobile chase scene. I made an action scene, and they were like, 'That wasn't what you were supposed to be doing.'
-
I feel like, Barry Seal, he's pure of heart.
-
I went to USC film school, briefly, which is a very traditional film school.
-
I'm interested in the kind of anti-establishment ethos that goes with making an independent movie. I like to bring that to studio films - usually to the consternation of the studios.
-
I've always been interested in giving the audience a first-person experience in my movies.
-
I'm not really in a rush to grow up.
-
I like to keep my options open. I'm known for changing my mind.
-
I really love the movies of Katherine Hepburn, movies like 'The African Queen.' I love 'Midnight Run' and I suppose, to pick something out of a different genre, I love 'Aliens.'
-
'The Wall' doesn't recount a specific soldier's experience in Iraq, but it captures the spirit of many experiences that were shared with me and with Aaron Taylor-Johnson and with John Cena.
-
All of my fellow directors, I think, would agree that in whatever medium you are working, the challenges and obstacles push them to be more creative. That's the case with VR.
-
One thing about pushing yourself outside your comfort zone is that you're going to make mistakes, and you're going to fall flat on your face sometimes.
-
People don't talk about how hard it is to make a movie. Nobody does. Ever.