I enjoy looking at words on paper and visualizing how to make them come to life. As a director, the creative process is really amazing.
I produce the way I would love to be produced: In ways to create the best conditions to make your movie, but also to create a space in which the director calls the shots.
I have a lot of respect for people who are great at ad-libbing, and for writers and directors who are able to create a scene in which that works.
I can't imagine any director directing a screenplay of mine, because the great directors all have very personal styles, and the ones that don't are not very interesting directors.
I've worked with some very good directors and some very bad ones. I learned a great deal from both. From the bad, untalented people, you learn what not to do. And when you work with very highly talented people, you want to emulate them.
Obviously, if a director doesn't communicative a clear, relevant vision of the material, it will not succeed no matter how good the material.
David Mamet we all know is a great screenplay writer and playwright and a great director. If you like him, you like him. If you hate him, you really hate him. He's someone who's into controversy, you know what I mean? That's David Mamet.
Whenever I'm offered something, I always read the script and meet the director. I still appreciate just being considered.
But if one could go back in time, I'd love to have been directed by Howard Hawks, who's one of my great heroes. One of the greatest directors there ever was. He directed probably one of the greatest westerns of all time in 'Rio Bravo'.
When you're artistic director of a program, you present the music you want to present.
I'd love to direct a film, but I don't think I have the temperament for it. I'm very hyper, and I want things to be done ASAP. If I turn director, I might end up killing my actors.
There are a few directors around who I have some excitement about spending my $7 at the theatre watching their movies.
I'm not as eager to go just work to work. I have another life outside of it, and if I'm pretty sure the movie's not going to have a life, or if it's not a director I believe in, then I probably will say no.
Good, bad mediocre or whatever it is, if a director wants me in his movie, I take it as a compliment.
A good script and a good brief from the director is enough to let me know what is expected of me.
Most actors go, I read the script and fell in love with it; I fall in love with the directors.
If I am creating the shots from scratch I may have to spend more time holding the directors hand and therefore have less time to finesse the shot or the lighting etc. but it really all depends on the project. Some films benefit from their spontaneity.
A film's success or failure is strictly on the director's shoulders.
I had no natural gift to be anything - not an athlete, not an actor, not a writer, not a director, a painter of garden porches - not anything. So I've worked really hard, because nothing ever came easily to me.
The director is the most overrated artist in the world. He is the only artist who, with no talent whatsoever, can be a success for 50 years without his lack of talent ever being discovered.
A director is someone who presides over a series of accidents.
I love films. I love fiction films, too. I do. I love making them, but it has to be the right one. Hopefully, I'll never become a director for hire. It's horrible to make a film that you're not really interested in.
I'm one of the few directors that actually shoots a lot in camera.
A fantastic actor in a scene that's just closed off will be good. But when working with a director who knows little tricks - correct music, slowly pushing in - that stunning performance will somehow become even better. I've always seen it as a symbiotic relationship.
Most films and directors lose their nerve and want to indicate [emotions] a bit more, to show that their story is clear. I'm not saying that's a good thing; as an actor its anathema to good acting, but to have someone with the confidence to say that should I be utterly natural and minimalist is great.
