Elia Kazan Quotes - Page 2

A good director's not sure when he gets on the set what he's going to do.

If you're going to play a cowboy, show up with the horse at the audition

Whatever hysteria exists is inflamed by mystery, suspicion and secrecy. Hard and exact facts will cool it.

I like directors who come on the set and create something that's a little dangerous, difficult or unusual.

Every fighter has one fight that makes or breaks him.

I was able to capture on film things the actors didn't even know they were doing.

The more ambivalent you are and the more uncertain you are, then you can get something that you cannot anticipate.

I was not a collective person or a bohemian; I was an elitist.

The thing with films is that you have to make something that will get people out of their houses, away from the TV set. You must touch people, say something. Otherwise, they'll stay at home.

Miller didn't write Death of a Salesman. He released it. It was there inside him, waiting to be turned loose. That's the measure of its merit.

I was the hero of the young insurgent working class art movement.

Hey, you must be doin' good, 'cause I never hear from you.

Acting, I found, was the biggest charge I ever had. What other artist has it so good? Approval so quick?

Every picture that is successful has one little miracle in it.

I know many of the critics and I don't think of them as God-like figures. What can they do to hurt me? Sure, I might be slightly embarrassed for a day, but then you just go your own way.

TV has made us get down to the nub and new films will begin to live up to what the medium can be.

Stylized acting and direction is to realistic acting and direction as poetry is to prose.

I will say nothing to an actor that cannot be translated into action.

There is only one thing I respect in so-called Broadway actors... and that is their competitive sense.

The essence of the stage is concentration and penetration. Of the screen action, movement, sweep.

I spoke without fear of contradiction. I simply did not suffer self-doubt.

I knew the exuberance of playing before an admiring audience and hearing my secret voice.

There was no doubt that there was a vast organization which was making fools of all the liberals in Hollywood and taking their money, that there was a police state among the Left element in Hollywood and Broadway.

I truly believe that all power corrupts. Such is probably the thinking behind every political film ever made in Hollywood.

I may be getting old, but not foolish.