You have great athletic directors, you let them run it; you keep yourself informed, but I'm not the athletic director. I'm the president of the university.
Everybody just asks me 'Are you going to make Hollywood movies now?' First, I don't know. Second, I never dreamed about that; I just dreamed about making movies with Tarantino. So if I can make movies with a lot of amazing directors - yes.
We had many good directors - John Carpenter, Brian De Palma - but things have become polluted by business, money and bad relationships. The success of the horror genre has led to its downfall.
I'm directing episode 10 of the new season of 'Dollhouse' and couldn't be more thrilled. I've visited the set several times in the last year and a half to shadow Joss and other directors in order to prepare. It was important for me to get a feeling for the crew and how they interact.
You can work really hard on your physicality, on your craft, on the films you do. You can choose the best of directors, the best of productions, get the best technicians, you can put your entire body and soul into the making of a film, but at the end of the day, it all depends on the mood of that one audience member that goes into that theater.
I'm one of the lucky directors that pretty much every movie I've done has started a franchise. But I never think this way. I think that's the way you break it, if you go, 'then at the end, at the end we'll see you later.' I was forced to do it in 'Clash of the Titans.'
My whole M.O. in my 20s was being in as many different types of films as you can. Working with as many different types of directors as you can. I think, in part, that's what I wanted to do as an actor.
I don't watch many films. I just make sure my directors are really good. I will work even with a debut director, but the one-hour narration of the script should be mind-blowing.
I think, as directors, they may recognize, more than the rest of the body of filmmakers, exactly what you do as a director, because I think sometimes the conception is if the camera isn't swinging around, and it's not pyrotechnic or worthily melodramatic, then the direction is uninvolved.
A lot of directors idealize their leading ladies or turn them into these objects of sexuality and beauty.
When I was the NIH director, I often expressed envy of institute directors: they had the money and ran the scientific programmes.
'Battleship' is not a film that Francois Truffaut would have made. Nor would any of those other namby-pamby European directors. Nope, this picture eschews that Continental obsession with small stories, set in quaint towns filled with pockmarked folk doing their banal things.
I'd like to produce. I'd like to come up with ideas and collaborate with people and directors and writers that I like, be a part of movies that have the same idea that the movies that impacted me have. I'd like to be able to do that for people.
I would like to believe that I am a collaborative actor. That's why I love all the directors I have worked with in recent times, as they are all collaborative directors. I think my constant desire is to keep bettering my own work. I don't get easily satisfied with my work; I am very critical of it. I learn from my mistakes.
Quentin Tarantino doesn't beat Hal Ashby, and he's one of my favorite directors. Quentin is incredible.
I've been really lucky in terms of film projects with people, terrific actors and also writers and directors that I really respect.
When I was in college, my graduation thesis was called 'Female Directors.' I interviewed all of the important female directors from Mexico. There were four. That was it.
All directors have their strengths and weaknesses, as all actors have, and all artists. What you try to do is complete the relationship and take care of the stuff that the director won't take care of.
The things that I've enjoyed most are not really science fiction. They are not much fun to make because there are so many toys involved. They are fun for directors who like toys, like Ridley Scott, but they are not a lot of fun to make. A lot of hanging around, changing this and that.
'Birdman' has kinda... changed things. I'm not saying you won't see traditionally made movies any more. But I've had meetings with directors, and they've said it makes them rethink everything. You can hate this movie, but you have to talk about it. It's going to go down as one of the most interesting movies ever made.
If you're not prepared, and you're not passionate, and you don't push yourself to a level of human exhaustion on every level, mentally and physically and creatively... I've seen directors who approach it casually, and they do somehow maintain better hours... but I could never be that guy. I am up and editing all night.
Making movies is a very different experience in a lot of ways. It's difficult when you're used to owning the copyright and having a landlord's possessory rights - I rent my plays to the companies that do them and, if I'm upset, I can pull the play. But the only two directors I've worked with are pretty great.
I have a real thing for Mexican directors. And I love Guillermo del Toro and Alejandro Gonzalez Inarritu.
I did this thing for HBO called 'Strip Search' with Sidney Lumet, who was one of the best directors I've ever worked with. We actually had a rehearsal period before we shot, which is unusual.
I am definitely writing letters to lots of directors in my mind when I'm making a film. I'm chasing Woody Allen and Godard and Milos Forman and all these people.
I'm not intimidated by other actors at all - or directors. I don't care who they are. But I am intimidated by writers. I hold them in the highest esteem.
I love directors who aren't going back to the stereotypes, who are helping write and create roles for women that are not in the typical Hollywood box. I'm very, very interested in films that are going outside of stereotypical roles for women.
The marketing of my movies is something I have no control over! I usually am shown things to give input beforehand. Some directors get really involved with that, but it's not what I do. I don't know anything about marketing; it's not my skill set!
Writers, directors often can get too precious with their words.
I've always said to people that auteurism is nice, but it's hypothetical, and gradually you learn how much or how little influence different directors had.
I have a strong and strange character, and I've rarely met directors who knew what to do with this character. One of the few who did was my father, and in the theatre, Arthur Nauzyciel.
I've worked with some really great directors, and I'm really choosy about them because they're telling the story at the end of the day.
Directors should be paid for promising impossible things.
I have worked with a lot of really great women directors: Ana Kokkinos; Cate Shortland, who just recently directed a film called 'Lore;' another director, Rachel Perkins - she's an Aboriginal director, and I've worked with her three times now, and she gave me my first film role, actually, back in 1997.
There's so many more female directors than when I started. That's encouraging.
I'm not in a position where I get to pick and choose roles. I usually go on auditions in long lines and embarrass myself in front of casting directors, and with a lump in my throat and my ears burning, I walk past reception and smirking actors as I go to the parking garage and go back on the highway.
