David Fincher is a longtime friend. As a director, my wife had worked with him as a makeup artist when he would do Madonna videos years before, and his child and my oldest child were in preschool together, so we're kind of dad-friends through that, too.
As an actor and a fledgling director, I'm used to making snap decisions that I'll have to live with.
The Director of the Laboratory, George Reynolds, was most supportive of my efforts to work independently. There followed for ten years a glorious time for research.
What goes on between a father and a son, which is usually such a private matter, is that they are able to be honest with each other, and be honest with me, as a director. It's just remarkable.
I'm new to this TV thing, at least as an actor. It's a challenge. The thing I have to adjust to is the changing directors every week. That's new for me. I tend to establish with a director - and then two days later, he's gone.
As a designer, design director or any creative person, you have to hire great people, support them and make them feel comfortable so they can contribute and give you their best.
I don't come in with any preconceived ideas, and although I will have done some preparation, I can go which way the director wants.
In England, theater auditions are gentler experiences. You sit down with the director and talk about the play.
I see only one requirement you have to have to be a director or any kind of artist: rhythm. Rhythm, for me, is everything. Without rhythm, there's no music. Without rhythm, there's no cinema. Without rhythm, there's no architecture.
When I make films, I work with Mike Leigh, who's the most prolific director in England.
I think I'm drawn to films more as a director with a directorial mind even as an actor. I make movies to make the films, not to act.
I'd love to find a really good Brazilian project, an up and coming director or something. I wouldn't want to do the typical favela story, Brazilian cinema has a lot more to offer than just that.
A good director creates an environment, which gives the actor the encouragement to fly.
I'm not the kind of director who aims to send a message out.
You know, the dirty secret in the Director's Guild is that the average life expectancy of Director's Guild members is 57 years old. The stress level is so high and directors are generally really out of shape, cause they sit in the chair and they eat craft service.
I choose my work very carefully, always for the script and the director, and I don't think that's going to change. My work is like a house. It's built on very strong poles.
My very first news director said to me that it's better to be hated than to have viewers be neutral.
On a lot of shows that I've done, we had the same directors, which was cool. But then, it's also great to do shows where the director changes every week, because you get to see all these different personalities and see what you like dealing with better, as an actor.
It's natural for any actor that segues into directing to be an actor's director. You know how to relate to the actors.
I got an internship with the casting director of The Girl Next Door. I would hold the clipboard and help them in their casting sessions and get them lunch.
There's a way in which filmmaking is a director's medium and television is a writer's medium, so even as TV gets more cinematic, it's still guided by the writer.
You either are a good director or you're not.
By the first week of shooting, you know exactly where your film is heading based on the psychology of your director.
I would love to get great performances from actors as a director, because that's what I'm always looking for, a director that's going to help me go places I've never been before.
I saw my potential as artistic director, which is very different from designer. Fashion companies might have $200 million to $300 million in annual sales - Hugo Boss has €2.5 billion. I have to create a world that is believable and also relevant in 7,000 sales points around the world.
I don't even know if I can call myself a director.
I had a really good time working with Jim Cameron. A lot of people didn't, but I did as I got on with him really quite well. For a director who spends most of his time looking down a lens or in the digitisation studio or working out some graphics, he is actually very good with actors.
When you're a freelance director, you are hired to create the art, and it kind of stops there.
You have to get the casting right. You have to get the people behind it. Your director might not be the right director for the project. And then, it has to test and those people in that room, wherever they are, have to turn those buttons the right way at the right time.
I feel like I've been picky through the years and would do one movie a year or one movie every two years, and I want to work a lot more. So if I can find something that just happens right away as a director, I'll do it if I really love it, but otherwise, I want to keep working as an actor and getting better.
Richard Marquand, on Jedi, was very much an actor's director.
The relationship between an actor and a director is like a love story between a man and a woman. I'm sure sometimes I'm the woman.
David Boreanaz is actually a very good director and he directed one of our episodes. Excellent director, knew exactly what he wanted. We never had long days with David. He was great, he knew exactly what he wanted and he's a fantastic director.
I was raised in New York City and raised in the New York City theater world. My father was a theater director and an acting teacher, and it was not uncommon for me to have long discussions about the method and what the various different processes were to finding a character and exploring character and realizing that character.
The magic doesn't come from within the director's mind, it comes from within the hearts of the actors.
Alexander Gonzalez Inarritu is a great director. He's the one I first worked with. He's amazing.
