Directing Skyfall was one of the best experiences of my professional life, but I have theatre and other commitments, including productions of Charlie And The Chocolate Factory and King Lear, that need my complete focus over the next year and beyond.
Confidence is essential, but ego is not.
The characters are trapped within the lifestyle. It's about what goes on before the movie starts.
You think about taking audiences on a journey.
The importance of rehearsal is maybe you want to talk about how the scene's going to be designed, how it's going to be staged, all of those things. It's all about preparation, and deciding what mutually you don't want to do, rather than necessarily what you do.
The movies that influenced me were movies that told their stories through pictures more than words.
Truly great actors carry their characters in silence with them. They communicate without words the relationships that predate the movie.
Learn to say, “I don’t know the answer.” It could be the beginning of a very good day’s rehearsal.
I suppose once in a while, a filmmaker makes a movie that's more than just a sum of its parts, more than good acting or good filmmaking. It's something else that has nothing to do with what you've done. This is in 1999, made by people in 1999 for people in 1999 about people in 1999.
I am not a master-class director. I am not a teacher. I am a coach. I dont have a methodology. Each actor is different. And on the film set, you have to be next to them all.
You've got to work. You've got to want an audience to sit forward in their chairs sometimes, rather than sit back and be bombarded with images.
For me, certain shots or scenes are keys in the movie.
I've directed bits of action and so I know that it's long and it's very detailed. Editing action is a good deal more exciting than shooting action. Shooting action is very, very meticulous, it's increments, tiny little pieces.
I think movies are a director's medium in the end. Theater is the actor's medium. Theater is fast, and enjoyable, and truly rewarding. I believe in great live performance.
I want to inspire, and be inspired.
There's one thing better than having a great actor, and that's having a great actor who's never done this kind of role before and is hungry to do it. They're testing themselves every day. They want to get out of their trailer and get to work.
I don't think good and evil are polarized.
There have been screenwriters who I'm sure would gladly kill me, because I've been very fast and loose with their work, because I felt like it wasn't up to my high standards. I would push and pull it on set, and make changes all the time. But then when you're working with an original screenplay, my theater instincts kick in, and I suddenly become very keeper-of-the-words.
It took me a long time to film the plastic bag, and then I had to get the cut of the scene right. But if you find it as beautiful as the character does, then suddenly it becomes a different movie, and so did he as a character.
I wanted to keep exploring... I'm not about to choose a series of movies in which I can use the same bag of tricks and style that I used in the first film.
Actors get pigeonholed very quickly, particularly movie actors. In the theater, one is more used to casting people against type and trusting that their talent and skill will get them through.
Thank God I don't live in Los Angeles. I think if you're there the whole time it just gets out of proportion and you lose touch completely with reality.
You just never know when movies are going to take off or not. The lucky thing about this was that it didn't cost a lot of money, and therefore there wasn't loads of pressure on me.
Shooting action is very, very meticulous, it's increments, tiny little pieces.
Politicizing of kids starts with pregnancy, of course. You shouldn't be drinking wine. You can't be smoking, either. The poor woman is poked and prodded and touched and obsessed over.
