I had never thought of myself as a director and found out that I was not. I am a writer who was able to direct the films that I write.
I think a good director is a good listener.
The O.M.B. director puts together the budget. It handles every executive order. It is the clearing house for every single federal regulation. It has input into all the management of all of the federal agencies... It is involved with everything. And I thought, 'That's where I want to be.'
I've been shocked by film actors - 25 and under - having such confidence and cockiness to rewrite a scene. My background is more about the director being in control. It's all about yielding. It's an oddly submissive relationship in which you're moulded, Pygmalion-style.
Every story is different, every movie is different, every director is different.
I'd say that the director I had most involvement with was Alex Rockwell in 'In the Soup'. It was one of my earliest leading roles, and he gave me a lot of responsibility as an actor.
My father worked for governments all his life as an engineer and public works director.
Every director bites the hand that lays the golden egg.
Having been subjected to the pigeonholing of Hollywood myself, I realized that once you become a studio-approved director, your chances of ever making your own film again are zero. You make the films that the studio wants you to make.
As a director, I design every movie to be true to itself, and damn it if they like it, and damn it if they don't.
It was difficult every ten days having a new director. I'm a real collaborator and, as an actor, I want to be directed. It's hard for me to shift gears.
Of all the projects I've worked on, I've never worked with another director like Billy Friedkin. I think he's a genius.
I was the executive editor on a little magazine called Greek Accent, whose only claim to fame is that its art director went on to be the art director of Discover for many years.
The director sent for me for Tarzan. I climbed the tree and walked out on a limb. The next day I was told I was an actor.
I like working as a director most.
I depend on good editors and a good director.
You can always hear a director saying, 'Well I don't really know what this piece is saying, so therefore, I reject it.' There are any number of things you can anticipate going wrong, and sometimes they go right. But I think the things you like most are the things that get rejected first. That's just how things work.
For a director, the most challenging scenes are the dialogue scenes.
I think movies are a director's medium in the end. Theater is the actor's medium. Theater is fast, and enjoyable, and truly rewarding. I believe in great live performance.
The love scenes that worked, regardless of the director, were the ones where the actors weren't fearful. When somebody was fearful, you could see it right away. It takes you out of the story, and that's to be avoided at all costs.
I first started working in film when I was 17. I was a director's assistant, an editor.
I majored in Chinese Studies. I'm probably the only director of chicken Indian zombie movies who can speak pretty good Mandarin.
I feel like the books were just written like a movie. You read it and you can just kind of see everything. Before I went in to read with the director, I read the first book and I loved it. I didn't realize how good the writing was. And then I went in and read with Gary Ross, and that was it.
I would put my pictures up against anybody's in this world. Certainly in my own day I bow to no one. I don't think there's another director in the world who works harder to make better films than I do.
I have been a director who has starred, participated on both sides of the filmmaking process.
Actors have seven tracks going in their minds: They've got all the research they've done for the part, then they have whatever the director asked them to do, then they've got what the departments like special effects need them to do.
The 'transition' involves the transfer of power from one president to another. In recent times, the incoming President has designated a Director of the Transition, a team leader, to oversee and administer the orderly transfer of power.
Well, I wasn't just kind of standing in a queue at McDonald's and someone sat down and said, 'You're the director of a $100 million Hollywood movie.' I've been working in commercials for ten years.
A lot of these roles that I feel like I've had some sort of impact, or that have had an effect on me, have always been with directors who have the time to somehow get to know me. Any good director's going to be curious about who it is that's coming aboard.
I was taken to one place by a director, and he bought me a lap dance.
The marvels of daily life are exciting; no movie director can arrange the unexpected that you find in the street.
I never try to show an actor what to do or what to say. He has to find out for himself. The role of the director is to guide him to that state, and then to implement it.
Working on a play is a vibrant and collaborative business. Everyone from the choreographer to the music director to the director to the writers work together toward the same goal, and everyone chimes in on everything.
In Kurdistan, there's a lot of hardship - a lot of wars, a lot of bitter and difficult lifestyles. And witnessing all those made me a director.
The actor is concerned with his own bit of it, but the director's somehow trying to work the whole thing into a much bigger picture. It's like conducting an orchestra.
Sudheer Varma is very easy going and very confident director. He knows exactly what he wants. He has a very good vision and knows how many shots he wants for a scene. He is super fast. He gives freedom for actors to try different things. The atmosphere on the sets was never serious. We had great fun working together.
