Directors, like actors, get typecast. And because I've had great success with comedy and horror and TV shows, that's basically what I'm kind of offered.
It is not easy to get parts in mainstream films for most people of color. Hollywood and British writers are not writing parts for us, or the directors are not interested in casting us in parts that are color-blind.
Maybe I have just a younger voice than many other directors.
I tell directors, 'I can't promise you a hit, but I can promise you the movie is going to be yours.' When you work for a studio, they pay you a lot of money, but in exchange for that, they tell you what to do.
Most actors go, 'I read the script and fell in love with it'; I fall in love with the directors.
This great oracle of the East India Company himself admits that, if there is no power vested in the Court of Directors but that of the patronage, there is really no government vested in them at all.
To deny women directors, as I suspect is happening in the States, is to deny the feminine vision.
A lot of times in Hollywood, when casting directors find out you're of Middle Eastern descent, they go, 'Oh, you're Iranian? Great. Can you say, 'I will kill you in the name of Allah?'' I could say that, but what if I were to say, 'Hello, I'm your doctor.'
The best thing an actor can be is flexible, because all directors are different and all actors are different.
I am both proud and honored to be on the Board of Directors for the Texas Ballet Theater.
I had been doing summer stock every summer while I was in college. We did a showcase, like most good conservatories do - monologues and things that agents and casting directors come to see. From that I got an agent.
The red directors were one of the main political forces. Another force was the former Soviet ministers who lost everything because of the transformation of the Soviet Union to Russia.
I think the other honest attraction was that I just grew up loving watching TV and loving watching film, and there's so many directors and actors that I dreamed of working with, I just really wanted to take a crack at it and see if I could ever work with some of those.
I never had any classes or went to theatre school like a lot of actors, so all of my training has been on stage with different directors. That was a pretty good school room.
I don't think a director should have any kids. I don't even think it's good for your physical health. Even guys in their 30s look exhausted because directors never get enough sleep. What I do is stressful enough.
What I'd like to do is try as many different ways of working as possible. That's what I'm looking to do - collaborate with as many different directors.
All the jobs I've gotten in the last two years are because directors have seen the work I've done - indie films, plays, short student films, TV - since I moved to the states in 1996. I mean, I have an entire career in Canada that nobody has seen.
I have so much respect for directors. It's a tremendous amount of pressure; you have to keep steadfast and keep what you know is right.
As a director, just to be able to jump in to do something that's different, and to explore comedy and be challenged by that, is great. Some directors never get that opportunity.
I had a sort of bad experiences as a playwright early on, when directors were putting in huge concepts that I didn't intend, or they were stylizing something that was compromising the play, so I started to think like, 'Well if I'm going to fight against this, I should learn how to direct.'
I began taking liberties a long time ago; now it is standard practice for most directors to ignore the rules.
Directors and producers were afraid of a Dumont actor while at the same time they admired him.
I really liked doing a number of the projects and directors, and etc., etc., I knew about half-way through that I would never be doing that again. It's just not me. I really am happy as a part-time film composer, not a full-time film composer.
Now that I'm taking some time off from school, I've been reading a lot to make sure I don't forget everything. It's mostly classics and nonfiction accounts from actors, directors and writers from the '40s and '50s.
I think they quite like me when I work because I'm one of the safer directors to back, because even if my films don't bring their costs in back home, once they're shown outside of India they manage to cover the costs.
I think one third of my work is with first-time directors because I think I should, you know? Really, the difference between a first-time director and a second- or third-time director - I mean there's no director who makes enough movies anyway - but if they're talented, they have it. And there is no movie that is perfect.
I'm actually one who will encourage directors to cut my lines.
There are times when directors just don't know what they're doing.
The more shows that are produced, the more writers are hired, producers are hired, actors are hired, directors are hired, it means the more people will get employed. It's better for the economy. It's a fantastic thing.
As a producer, I'm quite nurturing, I like working with inexperienced, unseasoned directors.
I'd done table reads for my own screenplays, and I always thought they were so much fun. Why couldn't we do these for other classic screenplays and bring them to life? You can experience live theater, where you get to see plays produced by different directors and different casts, but there's really nothing like that for movie scripts.
I've had really great experiences working with first-time directors. They come at filmmaking with fresh ideas. I've been very lucky that way.
Being on a set where the director has lost control is just sickening. No one goes the extra mile, there's a lot of eye-rolling... it just breeds inertia. If a director is in control, the crew follow their leader. But the second anyone senses the directors are not sure, people just swoop in.
I think my favorite, and Coppola and that whole thing. East coast Italian directors I guess.
Some directors do recut their films, but I don't if I disagree, and what you suffer is a less passionate marketing campaign, less investment in the film at the other end, which is... fine. I get it.
Whatever talent I had, I'm sure it helped that my parents were in the business and that I grew up around actors, comedians and directors.
