When I became director of CIA, it was just clear to me intuitively, without a whole lot of science behind it, that we had expanded rapidly and inefficiently. So I arbitrarily picked a number, 10 percent, and I said over the next 12 months, we are going to reduce our reliance on contractors by 10 percent.
There's a whole system in Hollywood where the director never speaks to the studio, but I like to engage them in a discussion. I listen.
Accept it or not, every star, actor, and director wants to work on larger-than-life films.
I've never been difficult to anybody or with anybody on a picture. Especially when you're in that nice status of hierarchy of actors and actresses who get to approve directors. Because once you make that choice, it's my belief that the director's boss.
I've actually been given a great gift. When I walk into an audition with a director, I'm carrying no baggage. They haven't seen me in anything, even though I've done nine films.
Agnes Varda changed my view of cinema; she directs from an artistic point of view, and a film is most of all the expression of an artistic director. I learnt to enter the world and the imagination of a director.
I have actually lost a couple of roles - film roles - because a director or producer thought I looked too much like George Costanza, and I could not get out of that box.
I'm very old-school. I like a director to direct me. I like to be the actor.
I'm always cautious about overstepping any boundaries. At the end of the day, it's a director's medium, and if they don't want to hear from me I just step back.
Before 'Lord of the Rings,' some people would have just classed Peter Jackson as a horror director. But there is a mind there.
In 'Windtalkers,' the director John Woo is meticulous in melding his own intimate style into the cliches of a large-scale war movie, paying homage to all the tired conventions of the genre. But it's an honor that these cliches don't deserve.
The ebulliently sharp mind of 'White Christmas' director Walter Bobbie made me tremble and strive in the same breath. The deceptively 'simple' dialogue of David Ives, asking every actor to just. say. it. Float it on the breeze; it doesn't need 'explanation,' just energy and truth.
I feel fine, I don't care who the director is. All you have to do is know what your doing - all of us - everybody in the business - that's all you ask anyone - you know your job, I know mine, let's go do it.
My mother was a free-spirited clinical therapist, and I had the most hard-working father, a television lighting director by trade. My mum raised me to be a global citizen, with eyes open to sometimes harsh realities.
I love being on set, because I've basically grown up on a set. And now I love to contribute as a director and help steer the ship, if you will.
Look, a lot of directors were actors, even if they were unsuccessful actors which I think is helpful. I think it's a really helpful thing for a director to have experienced that. It helps you know how to talk to actors and how to get what you need from them.
Appearing in 'Legally Blonde' has helped me find my inner girl, although at the beginning the director was constantly telling me off for sitting like a boy, with my legs apart, while wearing a cocktail dress and heels!
I think Ang Lee is a very, very talented director. He used martial arts to talk about love and girl, you know... But Zhang Yimou tried to use martial arts film to talk about Chinese culture, Chinese people. What do they think, what do they want and what do they hope the world will become.
I've done auditions where the casting director is taking the paper out of my hand in the middle of reading.
With bad movies, I have this image in my head of the director and the editor in the editing room watching a scene that is not happening, looking at each other and saying, 'Put some music in there.'
Sometimes I think being an actor is like being a dog for a director; it's like they throw a stick, and you want to fetch it and bring it back to them. You want a pat on the head for it.
Warren Beatty is a great director. I wish Warren would direct another film right now, because I'd love to do another film with Warren. I think that 'Dick Tracy' is an outstanding film in its own right.
When you work with someone you don't quite know, you have to figure the director out, and you can come up with ideas that are counter-productive.
With respect to keeping your sanity, the more you are dedicated to your job, the more you think about it. And there is so much to think about for the director.
I love Malcolm Lee and jumped on the opportunity to work with him as a director.
I don't make my living writing; I make my living as a producer and as a director.
It's part of the job of the actor to torture the director.
I was amazed by how much you have to think about as a director. As an actor, you don't have to think about much at all, as it turns out. It's very easy. And then when you step into the director's role, there's this whole universe of stuff that you have to pay attention to that's amazing to me.
I know that I'm carrying a bit of a weight on my shoulders of what I do represents more than just myself as a director. I wish that wasn't true, but it is. It makes me think about doing work that I believe in and that I believe I can do well, probably even a hair more than I would otherwise.
A lecturer once told me I could never be a director. I was 16. I believed him.
Classics stay alive because a great actor or a great director wants to do them.
Kabir Khan is a director who goes out of his way to make his actors comfortable. He's very chilled out. He makes the environment on set very casual and friendly.
I would love to have a part opposite a great actor - like, say, Pacino or De Niro or Hoffman. And to work with a top director. That's my dream.
I love the process of making a movie so much as an actor that I can only imagine I would love the process of being the director.
The terrible tragedy for every director is to watch an actor do what you want and not have the camera rolling - and never get it back again. So I always try to roll the camera before anybody's really ready.
During my time as CIA Director and Secretary of Defense, Hillary was a strong supporter of our efforts to protect our homeland, decimate al-Qaeda, and bring Osama bin Laden to justice.
