I've always had the utmost respect and awe of what the lens can do and what a director can do with just a camera move.
For me, it's not like I am going to look at the money the director's film has made before their film... For me, it is about working with the director whose work I have admired.
If a director is really a director, I think he's interested in more than one thing.
Movie making is really, it's a director's medium, it's not even so much an actor's medium.
I like a shoot when I feel strong and sexy, a little hard, with a darker edge. That's what I do best. I like giving a photographer what they want, working with the art director. And modeling is all I've ever known.
I am not the kind of director who sits in a chair smoking a cigar talking with a microphone to 10 assistants. I need to move. To touch. To put a painting on a wall. To arrange a set.
I've done three Broadway shows; once the curtain goes up, that's it. I mean, you prepare and you rehearse like crazy, but after opening night, the director's not there anymore, you know. He gives you notes during previews after each performance, but opening night, you're on your own.
And I didn't grow up wanting to be a director. I grew up wanting to be a writer, so for me, that was always the goal - to be a novelist, not a screenwriter. And I think, again, if I didn't have the novels, maybe I'd be much more frustrated by not having directed yet.
I'll work with a director if I think I'm going to get into a comfortable situation, and if it's someone I respect and who respects me, even if they're not so well known. Movies are hard to make, and you have to work toward a common ethic and do your best.
I remember 'vulnerability' being an unattractive word for most of my life, and I resented it as a direction coming from a director just because it implied weakness so I get the job. But it is that humbling place that creates compassion.
I'm a walk-on guy. When the director says, 'Action,' I'm on.
You have to steal a lot. You have to have a criminal mentality to be a film director.
Finding where to put the camera is probably the most important thing you have to learn when you're a young director, and it's something that's a mixture of instinct and technique.
I've gotten pretty good with a tray between acting jobs. In fact, when I got the TV show 'Gravity' I was still doing my catering work. I told my director I had to miss rehearsal because I had to work a party. He was like, 'You're on TV. You need to get over that.'
I'd grown up doing children's theater there, and I always imagined myself being artistic director of a children's theater company.
My wife Victoria Harwood was art director on 'Far North,' and she had designed my student film, 'The Sheep Thief.'
I loved being in the room with Mamet as a director - he is the most generous, funny, delightful person to work for every day.
People think that the directors direct actors. No. Really, what the director's doing is directing the audience's eye through the film.
I like Rebecca Miller and her writing. She's a tremendous writer and director.
At first, before you meet her, you're like, 'I'm gonna meet Angelina Jolie! I'm talking to Angelina Jolie!' And then, within a matter of five minutes, you're like, 'Oh, I'm just talking to my director,' and it's just back to work. She really is all about the work. She's so surprisingly down-to-earth.
The attorney general called and asked me if I was willing to be interviewed for FBI director. And the truth is I told him I didn't think so, that I thought it was too much for my family. But that I would sleep on it and call him back in the morning. And so I went to bed that night convinced I was going to call him back and say no.
As a director, you never get to watch other directors work, and you also don't get to collaborate with other directors that much.
I recognize that every role I play, I'm not going to play someone that has a ministry or that is a Christian, and I don't think that's what God has called me to do. The gift and talent that He's given me as an actor, director, producer is to entertain, sometimes to inform, most times to inspire.
If you're a director, your entire livelihood and your entire creativity is based on your self-confidence. Sometimes that's dangerously close to arrogance.
I always knew that all it would take was for the right director to put me in a movie.
ThinThread was not the program of record of my predecessor, Ken Minihan, OK. I did not make ThinThread the program of record while I was director. After I left in 2005, Keith Alexander also chose not to make ThinThread the program of record.
I feel like a good director provokes you to ask questions about your character, but doesn't answer them for you.
One thing that I have learnt from many senior actors is that you can never take anything for granted. Whether one is working with the best director or a first-time director, every experience teaches you a lot.
I think Chris Weitz is an amazing director, and his sensibility - I wouldn't even know how to articulate it - it's just, he's a very sensitive, interesting guy.
Sometimes I get insecure about being a real director because I look at the great directors, and they have such command. But maybe that keeps me critical of myself. Maybe it keeps me moving forward.
I think film, to me, as a director, is about telling a story.
I'd like to make movies as a producer and a director.
On 'Darjeeling,' I was on set every day and I acted as the second unit director and a producer on that film. I was there throughout the whole process. On 'Moonrise Kingdom,' I showed up for one day.
I surrender to my directors. I do that because I respect them immensely. In fact, a director's talent scares me. I admit that they're more intelligent than me, and I submit to that, as an assistant director does. Even when I have suggestions to make, I don't state them strongly.
I think, when you're a director, you get sucked into your project whether you like it or not, right?
The worst thing you can do as a comedy director is be on set and think of something ridiculous, or an actor comes up to you with something ridiculous, and you say 'No, no that's too much.' Let's not worry if that's too much, let's shoot it, and then decide if that's too much when we see it.
