I'm first and foremost interested in the story, the characters.
You hear stories about directors using manipulation to get actors to do certain things, but I think when you're working with professional actors, it's all about trust. They can do anything you want, it's just a matter of them understanding what you're looking for, and the reason why.
We discard the personal specifics which don't conform to the ideal conventional beauty created by art directors and cinematographers.
You can dress it up, but it comes down to the fact that a movie is only as good as its script.
I don't think of myself as a director or writer. I think of myself as a filmmaker.
And also, Sergio Leone was considered in Italy a director of category B, not a big director.
Above all, a director has to be a good captain.
I would've been intrigued by being a film director. I would've been intrigued by politics. I thought about architecture.
You have to really be able to trust the director. It's about the filmmaker and whether or not I'm going to be able to have a relationship with them and want to follow them down that road, wherever it may lead.
On Ernst Lubitsch: He could do more with a closed door than other directors could do with an open fly.
As a director and an actor, I encourage improvisation but in character and in the moment of what it is.
Obviously with the onset of cable and satellite, there are more opportunities for programming and original programming, so it creates more opportunities for actors and producers and directors and everything.
One of the most, in a weird way, encouraging things a director can say to an actor - I know this as an actor - is when you ask them a question, they say, I don't know - 'cause it means there's some space there for you to find out. And it means that there's going to be a process.
It's really rare for film directors to be that interested in things other than themselves.
I always found something strangely paternal about the director-actor relationship. Actors want so much approval.
I didn't just see myself as a film director here [in Life And Nothing More], but also as an observer of people who had been condemned to death.
Obviously I'd love to work with any of these great directors because every time I've worked with them I've gained a tremendous amount as an actor. Each director has his own way of pushing you towards improving yourself.
I'm a performer, comedian, entertainer, writer and director.
In a movie, you're raw material, just a hue of some color and the director makes the painting.
All of the directors I've worked with I've gotten along with very well.
He was such a fabulous drama coach. What better person to have than Alfred Hitchcock? His work as a director was impeccable. I learned so much.
I think every director has a different take, some are good, some are bad. The directors you get on best with sometimes don't make the best films, so who's to say who is right?
Many plays - certainly mine - are like blank checks. The actors and directors put their own signatures on them.
A lot of young directors, they're not confident; they're not open to the emotional level of the scene.
With the most interesting directors, the cast comes together to make something magical that nobody counted on.
