Cary Fukunaga Quotes
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I don't think I'd ever write anything that I don't also direct just because it's so hard and painful to write as it is.
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I think auditions are set up for failure because they're not really the set experience. There's no time to develop the character. You're just looking at someone... if someone's really good in an audition, sometimes they're not good in the film. It's something you learn when you're doing short films. It's the same way that some people do well at taking tests and some people don't. But when you're on a long-term filmmaking process it's a completely different feeling.
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Every single substitute teacher growing up could not pronounce my name, so whenever someone pauses, I'm like, "Oh, that's me."
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In snowboarding, you're constantly aware that people are so technically brilliant at what they do, and you feel like, "Ugh, I'll never be able to do that."
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The apartments are made for eels.
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I do want to direct a movie from horseback one day.
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It takes the wool from your eyes about how the world works, to show you that nothing's necessarily fair, and that you might have a hard life.
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Everyone wants to be liked, so of course you want critical acclaim. After that, box office acclaim isn't bad. More than anything I think you have to try and make something you're proud of.
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Sometimes the best set experiences make for the worst films. So, you don't want it to be too good an experience! But the bulk of your life is working with people and collaborating so you don't want anyone to be miserable on your film either. You want it to be something that people walk away from saying that it was a good experience for them and hopefully a good film. As a director, you are sort of leader of that troupe for that period of time, so you're aware of morale and your effect - how you are as a person and how that sort of trickles down to everyone else.
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One of the great things about working with Focus is that you're never forced, especially with a film with low budget. The pressure is sort of off. It's like it's so under the radar in a sense that you can cast whoever you want.
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Collaboration sometimes causes conflict, and sometimes it's easy, but the bringing together of great minds only adds.
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I'm the kind of person where you're never done, you just keep perfecting and perfecting and perfecting, or trying to fix things that drive you crazy. Often times when you watch a film, "if I could just get through this minute, I'll be fine." So I think I'm just hard on myself.
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I started writing stories when I was 9 or 10. I wrote my first screenplay-type document when I was 14.
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I don't really put trophies out. I don't keep trophies around my apartment.
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You have to tease enough misinformation and lack of information to hopefully make people want more.
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I think it's a fascinating thing to see how lonely people are in this world and what they're looking for. It's a universal concept. So, it's something that interests me and I'll probably revisit it if I get the chance to do the child soldier film because I think it's one of the most important scripts I've written. It's just too dark to do as a film right now. I need to do something a bit different.
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Levity, you need levity to feel anything. You need to laugh before you cry. I think films that take themselves too seriously without any levity are missing an important ingredient to the potential emotional impact of their stories.
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When you think about being a director, you think about writing stories, putting the camera in interesting places and directing the actors to get your vision, but it's hard to imagine even this process... sitting here nine months later talking about the film and talking about it 20 times in one day. You don't even think about the part where you come to the set every morning and everyone's looking at you to see your mood in order to see what the day is going to be like, and the influence that you wield.
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I think that one of the most exciting things about making films is the sort of reaching out to the world. It's as an ambassador. You realize the more you travel that you are a cultural ambassador for your own country. You never become more patriotic than you do living abroad.
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In a city like New York, especially for young professionals who aren't in a family situation, most people don't cook for themselves. This is the only city I've ever lived in where I eat out every night.
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I want to be happy while I make movies and not just do things just to work. I want to do things I spend years on.
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I try not to read too much because what ends up happening is that you ignore the nice reviews and you just focus on the bad reviews. A negative lesson is learned seven times deeper than a positive reinforcement.
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If you think of most murders as being between people who know each other, it's very easy to figure out who the killer is. But when you have a murder that appears random, where the person is not someone that's within the known radius of the victim, then it's much, much more difficult to solve.
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Getting back in the directors chair - there's a sense of like doing something every year. It's not like riding a bike, you're always learning new things, you're gonna face new challenges and when you face new challenges you'll have an answer for them.