A good director is very well prepared, and knows exactly how he's going to cut the film, so the shooting is as efficient as possible.
Somebody's gotta stand up and say pubic hair is good, murder is bad. Sex is good, violence is bad.
We, in America, are so screwed up when it comes to sex. That's all we can see.
You can skim those stage directions and go right to the dialogue. You can almost read the movie in the same amount of time it will take you to see the movie.
Writers love to write those idiotic, long stage directions, and some of them worse than others. They have nothing to do with the movie. They're just jerking around.
The best thing for an actor to do is take your attention off of how you feel about it, and put it on striving to obtain a particular objective. The happy result is that it brings out all this unexpected stuff in yourself.
Here are the good things about independent films: They do the more interesting, chancy scripts. They're run by love.
Another mistake a director can make is not to be prepared, so you get there on the day to shoot the scene, and they don't know how it should be blocked, and they're not clear on how they want to do a scene.
Ultimately, a more experienced director realizes that you've got to stop sometime and just move on. They're braver about that.
Directing is a huge amount of work with very little payoff, and a quarter of the money, and nine times more time spent.
The actor has the advantage - or the liability - of knowing, "It's going to be my face up there on the frickin' screen, so I better keep my wits about me. Nobody's going to care that I was bad because I was not happy. They're only going to know I'm bad."
I loved Batman, don't get me wrong, but that kind of mindless violence is not good for young children.
As an actor, early on, you learn that the audience is never wrong. And if you think they are wrong, you need to find a different way to make a living. Collectively the audience is smarter than you will ever, ever be.
The reason they came up with the ratings board is that there are a lot of movies out there, and parents need some guidance. Not only for the kids, but for adults, as well. If you don't like to see a certain kind of film, there should be some rating, so that you know what you're getting into. But the present system doesn't work.
The ratings system is so bogus and people know it. Fewer and fewer people care. The ratings board has sort of exposed itself. But my problem is, as a parent, there's this area of film that my daughters want to see. They're not my kind of films, I don't want to go see them, but I really want to know whether my daughters can see them or not. The morality of what the ratings board is doing now escapes me. I don't get it.
There will always be people with disabilities. And by my estimation, the scorecard for the way we take care of those who need our help the most, those at the very bottom of that safety net, is pretty dismal. And that has to change.
Women, in order to recharge their batteries, gather in groups. They can recharge their batteries with their sisters. I tend to recharge my batteries in solitude, therefore the motorcycle trips. I need to be alone. As a matter of fact, I have to be careful. I could turn into a hermit.
I love making movies, I love the differentness of it, I love writing. But I've always liked television. I grew up on television.
Sometimes, directors are afraid to stop shooting, because the second you stop and say, "We got it," and move on, you'll never get another chance. And they're terrified to get in the cutting room and not be happy. So they just keep shooting.
Making a mistake means overshooting a scene, shooting too many takes, for instance. Long after you've got it, you just keep shooting.
When a director makes a mistake, people suffer. People suffer horribly sometimes.
I don't know if it's fair to say that it's a bad time for movies. It seems to me that throughout the entire history of filmmaking, every year there have been about two really wonderful movies, about 10 others that are pretty good, and a whole pile of garbage.
I think acting is getting better and better.
I am against censorship in any form. I think anybody should be able to make any movie he or she wants and let the public decide. If it's disgusting and they don't want to see it, they won't go. I believe in the audience.
I do want to do TV, but I'm looking to be a creator, writer, and producer, and perhaps I could be a recurring character. Do 10 shows a year, something like that.
