Elia Kazan Quotes
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I joined the Communist Party late in 1934. I got out a year and a half later.
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I was able to capture on film things the actors didn't even know they were doing.
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Acting... was the biggest charge I ever had. What other artist has it so good? Approval so quick?
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When you know what an actor has, you can reach in and arouse it. If you don't know what he has, you don't know what the hell is going on.
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I was the hero of the young insurgent working class art movement.
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For years after I resigned, I was still faithful to their way of thinking. But not in the American Communists.
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A film director has to get a shot, no matter what he does. We're desperate people.
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The makers of entertainment must try, in our field, to be honest and grown-up.
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Very often the Group actor is a critic when he's acting and an actor when he's criticizing.
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I wouldn't go up on a stage now if you paid a thousand dollars for one minute of acting. It's a nasty experience. You're up there all by yourself. You're so damn exposed.
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Truth gets buried, that's why people write autobiographies.
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I've been ratting on myself all these years and I didn't know it. I'm glad what I done.
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The world was like a huge red carpet out ahead of me to be walked on. And it stretched on and on, no end.
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I want to thank the Academy for its courage and generosity.
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I was the true future. I understood Communism better than they did.
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Hey, you must be doin' good, 'cause I never hear from you.
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The first thing you should do with an actor is not sign a contract with him. Take him to dinner. And take him for a walk afterwards.
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I owe Bankhead a gift; she made a director out of me.
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I'm small, but I'm neither compliant nor agreeable.
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What's called a difficult decision is a difficult decision because either way you go there are penalties.
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I'm very pro-America, but I feel it necessary to keep in touch with Europe to maintain a perspective.
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There is only one thing I respect in so-called Broadway actors... and that is their competitive sense.
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It's difficult, if not impossible, to get away with anything false before the camera. That instrument penetrates the husk of the actor; it reveals what's truly happening - if anything, if nothing. A close-up demands absolute truth. It's a severe and awesome truth.
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People made suggestions, but, hell, I don't actually listen to anybody, I just go my own way.