I loved cinema while growing up and, for the longest time, wanted to be a director.
There's a kind of unwritten rule: Don't say anything at all, and everything will be fine. It's a producer's medium. The directors aren't there to make any decisions. They're not going to change anything.
When it came to the on-camera TV stuff, I'd be standing next to the director, my friend, and he'd be asked a question that I should have been answering.
As a director, you should choose a project that will educate you and enrich your life, because you're going to be doing it for two years.
I joke around sometimes and say that the DP [director of photography] is like a shrink for the director, but there's some truth in there.
I would have never thought that I would hear myself saying that the president of the United States is afraid of the CIA. But he is. He's afraid of the NSA as well. How else to explain that the National Intelligence director, who lied under oath to his senate overseers on the 12th of March 2013, is still the director of National Intelligence?
There`s only one list that`s more illustrious than the list of directors who won the Palme d`Or. It`s the list of directors who didn`t.
To the documentary director the appearance of things and people is only superficial. It is the meaning behind the thing and the significance underlying the person that occupy his attention... Documentary approach to cinema differs from that of story-film not in its disregard for craftsman-ship, but in the purpose to which that craftsmanship is put. Documentary is a trade just as carpentry or pot-making. The pot-maker makes pots, and the documentarian documentaries.
I think TV is much more the writer's medium and film is about the director and their vision and how you can collaborate with them and see that through to the end. They are so different
Bud [Yorkin] was the kindest and dearest man, and one of the most talented directors there was.
The popular image that Hollywood is ruined by difficult prima donna actors is nonsense. They're certainly very nice to directors. I can't say the same about producers, who I found difficult, paranoid, and certifiably insane, mostly.
I don't think Hollywood makes many good films anymore. How many directors can you really trust to have an artistic vision, not a corporate vision or a watered-down communal one?
I think film is a director's medium and the good filmmakers that I like tell the darker stories. Therefore, I'm always inclined to follow people like David Cronenberg.
When I started out modeling, there weren’t casting directors and there weren’t stylists, so you just dealt directly with the designer. We were all much closer back then...
My whole family is very artistic - my uncles are all actors and theatre directors.
All these directors who do different locations forget that one room can be shot from a million different angles and a million different ways. When I direct a movie, I'm going to use that.
There are directors who, their direction is high, but then when you challenge it, it crumbles. They can't back up what they're asking.
My goal as an actor, as an up-and-coming actor in this business is to stay consistent with the work, you know, and if you do good work, and stay focused on the work, writers and directors will pay attention.
Personally, I can't stand violence. In any standard American mainstream movie, there's 20 times more violence than in any one of my films, so I don't know why those directors aren't asked why they're such specialists for violence.
Of course I am a child of European culture. There are a number of great directors from which I learned, but there is nobody in particular I got inspired from.
There have been directors that I did not enjoy working with, but for the most part I realize that I have been unbelievably spoiled in my career because I have worked with some of the greatest, greatest directors ever.
Judd Apatow is pretty good, both as a producer and as a director.
The director's in charge of every single decision [in film]. It's a dictatorship.It's a benevolent dictatorship, but it's true. It's every single shot. There's nothing arbitrary.
Oftentimes when I'm deciding to do a movie, the main thing is really, that I look at, is the director. I've come to feel that more and more. The more movies I've done and the older I've - the more experience I have, I always knew it was a director's medium, and I always said that.
I wanted to trust in my partners and the directors and producers and do the best I can to deliver what I could deliver.
