Director Quotes

• The thing that I think a director has to have in order to make a movie really work, and to certainly make a film that feels personal, is that you have to have a sense of the feeling that you want to create in people, the tone which you want to tell the story, and the basic themes you want to come out. You can't compromise on those because you are then not making the movie that you are going to be good at telling.

  

  George Nolfi
  • Work
  • Movie
  • Feeling

• There are definitely reasons to do certain things, but I like to stick to good director, good actor, good script.

  

  Amanda Seyfried
  • Director
  • Reasons
  • Script

• If I were to be cast as Cyrano or a Connecticut prep-school teacher or a gay boutique owner, it would only happen if some director I had worked with in the past said, 'Why don't we give Rispoli a shot at it?'

  

  Michael Rispoli
  • Would
  • Worked
  • Connecticut

• I was mid-sentence when the casting director said, "Listen, kid. You should not be an actress. You are not pretty enough. You should go back to wherever you came from and you should go to school. You don't have it." She was very blunt - I honestly think that she thought she was doing me a favor.

  

  Winona Ryder
  • Director
  • Actress
  • Mid-sentence

• Your director is your everything and you devote yourself to them and you want to help create their vision.

  

  Natalie Portman
  • Help
  • Vision
  • Create

• A team effort is a lot of people doing what I say.

  

  Michael Winner
  • People
  • Inspiring
  • Filmmaker

• When I was a kid it was much more difficult. You're trying to understand what the director wants. It's a learning process. Now, you go in and it's more of a collaboration.

  

  Moises Arias
  • Learning
  • Difficult
  • Collaboration

• I think that in order to be a film director, one has to be a warrior who shouldn't be defeated by the daily onslaught of problems.

  

  Alejandro Gonzalez Inarritu
  • Problems
  • Director
  • Warrior

• When it’s still—when it’s the cellar of a house, or a ring of mushrooms in a forest or a gun emplacement outside Offenburg—it’s called one of two things. If it remains static and unchanging then we call it a despair. If it seeks to extend its influence then it is a malignancy. Or as the Director puts it—a despair will suck you in, but a malignancy is coming to get you.

  

  Ben Aaronovitch
  • Influence
  • Despair
  • Mushrooms

• There's nothing worse than a director that keeps changing their mind. Because, unlike the directors I work with, I'm not decisive at all.

  

  Cliff Martinez
  • Work
  • Mind
  • Director

• We're not allowed in the cutting room - and that's extraordinary. So, when a director is asking for certain nuances and colours and we feel that they're phoney, but we do it because the director asks for it, that's the one that they pick in the cutting room. And I contend that when you see a movie with bad acting, don't blame the actor... blame those guys in the cutting room because they like that take.

  

  Dustin Hoffman
  • Director
  • Colours
  • Nuances

• As a director you already have a script, you have actors... you have collaborators when you're a director. When you're writing there's no one to collaborate with, there's no material to look at. I haven't adapted something yet, so, I'm sure that would be helpful. When you're writing an original piece you have nothing.

  

  Ben Younger
  • Actors
  • Sure
  • Collaborators

• "A good director is one that lets you improv," that's ridiculous. There's some actors who should not be improving and there are some scripts that should not be touched. I think it's just a case by case basis.

  

  Ben Younger
  • Actor
  • Scripts
  • Improving

• Everybody sees things their own way, but putting it onscreen is a different story - you have to deal with production crews. That's what differentiates a good director.

  

  Emmanuel Benbihy
  • Director
  • Crews
  • Differentiates

• What makes it frustrating is when a director or a studio head doesn't see me for the same part that they'll see, let's say, Drew Barrymore for. Drew's a great friend of mine. But it's like, "No, we want more of an American type of girl."

  

  Eva Mendes
  • Frustrating
  • Great Friend
  • American Girls

• I don't know if the scripts are changing so much. I mean, I've been working for almost 25 years and made over 40 films and I worked with my first female director, on a feature, "Planetarium". And it's still the only one.

  

  Natalie Portman
  • Female
  • Scripts
  • Planetarium

• The first heart you win over is that casting director. In first meetings, they'll be the ones who see your pitch for the character. And then as you get further up, they'll be the ones reading with you in front of the network.

  

  Michael Mosley
  • Reading
  • Characters
  • Meetings

• I got involved through the director of the show Top Chef, he's a director of films in Mexico; I worked with him before. I watched the show in English -many times for many years - and I always loved it. As soon as I heard about having an opportunity to showcase Mexico in a different way, to show a different side of Mexico, that is not violent, that has beautiful colors and delicious food... I didn't think about it twice.

  

  Ana Claudia Talancon
  • Opportunity
  • Director
  • Top Chef

• I operate the camera, I always do it when I'm the director, and I like to approach it as a documentary, finding the images based on what happens, as it happens.

  

  Benjamin Ávila
  • Director
  • Camera
  • Images

• Obviously, if a director doesn't communicative a clear, relevant vision of the material, it will not succeed no matter how good the material.

  

  Tom Skerritt
  • Vision
  • Director
  • Material

• If we have come up with a creative decision and somebody comes up with another idea, you do have to get into the depths of it and ask: "Is it a better idea? Or is it a different idea?" That can be hard. But that's the type of conversation the director and I will have, or as part of our creative groups. So with that in mind, it's hard to keep a budget in line. It's like in life, if you've ever built anything for the first time you're usually better at it the second time.

  

  Brad Lewis
  • Decision
  • Idea
  • Conversation

• For me, as an actor, it's always about getting out of my own way. I can put so much pressure on myself to keep up and make my director happy instead of being in the moment.

  

  Jovan Adepo
  • Happy
  • Director
  • Own Way

• My attitude as an actor, because I'm a stage actor, is whatever the director tells you to do, you try it. You don't resist what a director is giving you.

  

  Anthony Heald
  • Attitude
  • Actor
  • Director

• I didn't have the problem of finding myself at 45 on the wrong course - I always wanted to be a film director.

  

  Elia Kazan
  • Problem
  • Film
  • Director

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