Casting is 65 percent of directing.
There are two things I will never do in my life. I will never climb Mount Everest, and I will never work with Val Kilmer again. There isn't enough money in the world.
The accolades usually come when you're dead or too old to get a job
And in Hollywood, you know, everyone is an expert. Most of them are expert editors. They can't direct, they can't write, they can't act, but, by God, they all think they can edit.
I've found that the more experts you have on a movie, the less control the director has.
The importance of the assistant director cannot be overemphasized.
I have gotten to a point in my life where I don't want to have dinner with someone I don't like.
I look at actors very closely. It's not an accident when the actors excel.
One of the first lessons you learn as an actor is to listen.
I think that you can't make a movie without a script. But you also can't make movies without actors. You also can't make movies without technicians. And there has to be just one person in charge of everybody, and to me that one person is the director.
Historically the director has been the key creative element in a film and we must maintain that. We must protect that, in spite of the fact that there is new technology that's continually trying to erode that.
First, speaking for myself, I don't want to ever be in a position where I'm telling other directors how to make movies, because I don't think it's any of my business.
You have to be a great storyteller. And you have to master the tools that you have to tell the story which are, inorder of importance, the script, the actors and then thetechnical means.
The first assistant director is just so important that the choice of that person is critical to the movie.
If you cast the picture correctly, you have a whole lot of leeway. You can make mistakes in other aspects but pull it off with the right actors.
I think I've made some pretty decent films in the '80s and '90s.
The world is full of beautiful girls. But they're not Angelina Jolie. She's fun, honest, intelligent, gorgeous and divinely talented. She brings a hell of a lot to the party.
The first thing I can really tell you is I really love the work.
One of the other things I think that I've been able to do in my life, is to listen well
I feel that my job is to create an atmosphere where creative people can do their best work.
I think all great actors - and I don't classify myself as one of them, incidentally - but I think all great actors listen well and I've learned that from a lot of the very good actors with whom I've worked - to really listen to what people say.
So I've had really great assistant directors for my last seven movies.
I really, really love directing films.
It's very eclectic, the way one chooses subjects in the movie business, especially in the commercial movie business. You need to develop material yourself or material is presented to you as an assignment to direct.
But I really am very active in the choice of the line producer with the producer of record and the distributing company, because I've had some terrible, terrible experiences with some line producers, particularly in cable.
