Directors famous quotes

My father was a film-maker. He always said he wanted to go like Humphrey Jennings, the legendary director who stepped backwards over a cliff while framing a better shot.
-- A. A. Gill

#Death #Father #Directors

Subtle, funny and touching, with a striking downbeat authenticity. Director Craig Zobel is the real thing.
-- A. O. Scott

#Real #Touching #Directors

Directors, producers can make you look good or make you look bad.
-- Aaron Eckhart

#Directors #Looks #Producers

I would love to get great performances from actors as a director, because that's what I'm always looking for, a director that's going to help me go places I've never been before.
-- Aaron Eckhart

#Directors #Actors #Helping

When I write something, I want the best director to direct it. And that's not going to be me.
-- Aaron Sorkin

#Writing #Directors #Want

There are so many elements that make a good film. You need a great director who's driving it.
-- Aaron Taylor-Johnson

#Directors #Needs #Elements

All you can really do as director is sort of set a tone.
-- Adam McKay

#Directors #Tone

David O. Russell is probably my favorite filmmaker. He's not only a great director, but he's also a great writer.
-- Adam McKay

#Directors #My Favorite #Filmmaker

For me, there was never an end game for becoming a director.
-- Adam Shankman

#Games #Directors #Becoming

I'm a student. I want to do better, and I want directors who can find the actress in me and be my teachers. I'm interested in the whole process of editing, post-production and direction.
-- Aishwarya Rai Bachchan

#Teacher #Editing #Directors

We make a contract within ourselves as actors or directors or writers about how much of ourselves we let into projects. You can actually figure out before you work on something how much blood you will have to let emotionally.
-- Ajay Naidu

#Blood #Directors #Actors

I've always loved music videos - I used to make my own for bands like Pearl Jam. My favorite directors are Michel Gondry, Spike Jonze, and Patrick Daughters.
-- Akiva Schaffer

#Daughter #Mother #Directors

I have a final word of advice to our students. If you work very, very hard, this is the kind of actor, writer and director you may turn out to be, and if you work extra hard, this is the kind of person you may turn out to be.
-- Alan Alda

#Advice #Directors #Finals

Really top-notch directors, I've often worked with them just to see how they work.
-- Alan Alda

#Directors #Notches #Top Notch

It's really rare for film directors to be that interested in things other than themselves.
-- Alan Cumming

#Directors #Film #Film Directors

Actors aren't stupid, mostly, and if there's a sensibility and an aesthetic that a director's going for, if you're aware of that too, you can do things to help that.
-- Alan Cumming

#Stupid #Directors #Actors

A lot of directors prefer the solitude of the editing process, but I revel in the craziness of what a film set is.
-- Alan Parker

#Editing #Solitude #Directors

Well, if you ask any filmmaker how they got into it, everyone came a different route. Ive never actually watched another director work.
-- Alan Parker

#Directors #Different #Filmmaker

Most directors have little lists in their heads of people they really want to work with.
-- Alan Parker

#People #Directors #Want

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.
-- Alan Rickman

#Mean #Space #Directors

The difference between being an actor and a director is simple. The director has to hide his panic; the actor doesn't.
-- Alan Rickman

#Simple #Differences #Directors

One longs for a director with a sense of imagination.
-- Alan Rickman

#Imagination #Directors

The directors you trust the most are the ones, when you ask them a question, they've got the guts to say, 'I don't know.'
-- Alan Rickman

#Directors #Guts

I never wanted to be a director.
-- Albert Brooks

#Directors #Wanted

You know, I became a director out of necessity. I was writing comedies, and I couldn't find anybody to deliver it correctly.
-- Albert Brooks

#Writing #Directors #Comedy

'Drive' came to me because the casting director knew my manager and called and said, 'You've always talked to me about Albert wanting to play the heavy. I think he should read this.' My ears just perked up.
-- Albert Brooks

#Thinking #Play #Directors

I'm an actor because I love movies, and always have loved movies. I'm a film buff. So, getting to work with those kinds of directors and getting to tell those stories is what I want to do.
-- Alden Ehrenreich

#Movie Love #Directors #Stories

Most directors make films with their eyes; I make films with my testicles.
-- Alejandro Jodorowsky

#Eye #Directors #Film

Your crew becomes your family and you trust the director and the other actors on the set, and it's a very safe place.
-- Aleksa Palladino

#Directors #Actors #Safe

I'm a good actor in that sense for directors because I always do what they say.
-- Alex Cox

#Directors #Actors

I always said to the directors that the minute a player becomes more powerful than the manager of Manchester United, it's not Manchester United. You have lost control of the whole club. So I always made sure that I was in control. They always knew who the manager was.
-- Alex Ferguson

#Powerful #Player #Directors

The one thing about program television that's absolutely incompatible with any concept of art is that all decisions have to be made by program directors, whereas art is autonomous. It may be dependent, but it knows no superiors.
-- Alexander Kluge

#Art #Decision #Directors

The kindest thing a director can do is look with open eyes at everything.
-- Alexander Payne

#Eye #Directors #Looks

Directors and writers have a lot of stress as well, because they have people they answer to.
-- Alexis Bledel

#Stress #People #Directors

I think with the smaller-scale projects, the burden for success falls more squarely on the shoulders of the actors and the director and the script.
-- Alexis Denisof

#Fall #Thinking #Directors

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.
-- Alfonso Cuaron

#Space #Directors #Way

As a director who loves the camera you learn a lot.
-- Alfonso Gomez-Rejon

#Cameras #Directors

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.
-- Alfonso Ribeiro

#Creative #Directors #Paper

The more successful the villain, the more successful the picture.
-- Alfred Hitchcock

#Successful #Directors #Villain

I love working fast. I don't relish the director who wants to do 25 to 30 takes, or the actors who insist on doing 25 or 30 takes.
-- Alfred Molina

#Directors #Actors #Want

My agent in Sweden used to send off interview tapes but I decided to take it upon myself and come to London to visit casting directors which is when things first started taking off for me. I love Sweden but the industry out here is quite small so when I was given the chance to go internationally I took it.
-- Alicia Vikander

#Love #Age #Directors

Nancy has her vision and she's a formidable force to be reckoned with, and that's similar to most of the male directors I've worked with. The only difference is probably inbetween scenes, gossiping with Diane Keaton, Frances McDormand and Nancy Meyers about who's had Botox and who hasn't.
-- Amanda Peet

#Differences #Vision #Directors

Producers generally don't like me; directors do, generally. Convincing the producers is hard. They can't see the commercial value behind such a face, nor would they get a commercial value, necessarily - and I don't mean that in a good way or a bad way.
-- Amanda Plummer

#Mean #Directors #Way

There are definitely reasons to do certain things, but I like to stick to good director, good actor, good script.
-- Amanda Seyfried

#Directors #Actors #Scripts

I find that all great directors, and I would include Ben Affleck and Clint Eastwood in that, they have great confidence. And with great confidence comes great freedom for the actor.
-- Amy Ryan

#Actors #Directors #Great Confidence

I want to take roles that challenge me and I want to like the script and obviously feel connected with the director because the director to me is so important.
-- Amy Smart

#Challenges #Important #Directors

The red directors were one of the main political forces. Another force was the former Soviet ministers who lost everything because of the transformation of the Soviet Union to Russia.
-- Anatoly Chubais

#Russia #Political #Directors

I'm communicating with the directors of the Soviet companies, and I see that it is wrong, but when I go to the official discussions, they discuss we should change the color of the walls.
-- Anatoly Chubais

#Wall #Color #Directors

You come up with a story line, you hire the writer, the director, the stars, the set designer.
-- Andre Balazs

#Stars #Directors #Stories

I find it kind of weird that directors want to put themselves in their films.
-- Andrea Arnold

#Directors #Want #Kind

When I do any stand-up, you're the writer, director, and producer. You're alone.
-- Andrew Dice Clay

#Directors #Producers

When I on set as a director I crazy. My temper is not that good.
-- Andrew Lau

#Crazy #Directors #Temper

I've always said to people that auteurism is nice, but it's hypothetical, and gradually you learn how much or how little influence different directors had.
-- Andrew Sarris

#Nice #People #Directors

On the one hand, young theatre directors were coming to television theatre, because they wanted to get closer to the cinema, despite having studied and worked for the theatre.
-- Andrzej Wajda

#Hands #Theatre #Directors

But that's not what an actor does. An actor finds things in the moment with a director and other actors that you don't have time to hand-draw or animate with a computer.
-- Andy Serkis

#Hands #Directors #Doe

Voyeurism is a director's job description. It's an artist's, too.
-- Andy Warhol

#Art #Jobs #Directors

Now I'm kind of established as a director, I much prefer directing to writing.
-- Ang Lee

#Writing #Directors #Kind

Clint Eastwood is an extraordinary director because he knows the value of a buck. He knows where it will show on the screen.
-- Angela Lansbury

#Directors #Bucks #Shows

As an artist, program directors always want to put you in a little box.
-- Angie Stone

#Artist #Directors #Want

You have always had individual directors who begin in the advertising or commercial world, but they are probably exceptions rather than the traditional pattern.
-- Ann Macbeth

#Directors #World #Patterns

If I feel the part is right, and I know that the producers and the director want me, I'd go for broke. Always.
-- Anne Archer

#Directors #Want #Broke

Obviously in Art of Noise, I'm just part of the group, and when I do film scores, it's always in collaboration with the director and other people involved.
-- Anne Dudley

#Art #People #Directors

You have to get it in your brain that you don't belong to yourself as an actor, but that you belong to the director who creates the character.
-- Anne Parillaud

#Character #Brain #Directors

In theatre, there's the director, the writer, and below them the actor. In film, it's the actors who are most important. That goes against the grain for me.
-- Anne-Marie Duff

#Important #Theatre #Directors

As an actor, you want a director who makes you feel comfortable in a place that you can really create and try a lot of different things.
-- Ansel Elgort

#Trying #Directors #Different

I can't stand directors who try to micro-manage everything. When it happens these days I just walk off set, saying if they don't like the way I'm doing it they can get someone else.
-- Anthony Hopkins

#Trying #Directors #Way

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.
-- Anthony Michael Hall

#Opportunity #Directors #Actors

I think my favorite, and Coppola and that whole thing. East coast Italian directors I guess.
-- Anthony Michael Hall

#Italian #Thinking #Directors

I had never thought of myself as a director and found out that I was not. I am a writer who was able to direct the films that I write.
-- Anthony Minghella

#Writing #Directors #Able

Being a writer-director can sometimes make you incredibly blinkered.
-- Anthony Minghella

#Directors #Sometimes

I became a director just for the love of movies, because of the power of cinema.
-- Antoine Fuqua

#Directors #Cinema

It is very difficult to follow your own method all the time because you may crash against some directors who want from you something different. Trying to understand the material, who you're working with, and how can you fit in there. That is my approach.
-- Antonio Banderas

#Trying #Directors #Different

I did my first movie, 'The Mambo Kings,' in America without speaking the language. I learned the lines phonetically. I had an interpreter actually just to understand directions from my director.
-- Antonio Banderas

#Kings #America #Directors

I am lucky, that is all. Lucky because there are a lot of people - producers, directors, people who buy tickets - who put confidence in me.
-- Antonio Banderas

#People #Directors #Lucky

I always felt that the telefilm directors made wonderful films, which are even better than the big screen movies, but never got enough opportunities to showcase their talents on the big screens.
-- Arin Paul

#Opportunity #Directors #Talent

I've been lucky to get some path-breaking films, which proved to be the turning point in my career. Be it 'Rock on!' 'The Last Lear' or 'Raajneeti,' directors started working in a different way.
-- Arjun Rampal

#Rocks #Careers #Directors

I feel fortunate. I've really gotten to work with amazing talented people, and to learn from them, which is why I'm doing this. If I can work with the best director I'm going to do it.
-- Armie Hammer

#People #Directors #Feels

It is absolutely my conviction, that Walter Salles will figure among the great directors of our time.
-- Arthur Cohn

#Directors #Conviction #Figures

There is a kind of thinking in the Church that wants to reduce the priest to a mere functionary, a managing director, where administration rather than doctrine and worship are to determine the form of the Church.
-- Arthur Middleton

#Thinking #Church #Directors

I'm getting my respect as a video director. The fashion industry respects me and knows who I am.
-- ASAP Rocky

#Fashion #Who I Am #Directors

Having been a child actor, I remember how directors would trick me to get good performances out of me. I don't think you need to do that.
-- Asia Argento

#Children #Thinking #Directors

I've worked with very few directors who've asked of me what I asked of myself.
-- Asia Argento

#Directors

I would love to occasionally do English-speaking films, but the script is as important for me as the director.
-- Audrey Tautou

#Important #Directors #Scripts

Hollywood needs more women directors, and Mama Ava needs a carafe and a half of that sweet vino divino.
-- Ava DuVernay

#Sweet #Directors #Hollywood

Oh, what the hell did I know? I went to the set the first day in full makeup and the director told me to take it off. So I did the film without makeup. I had nothing to do with anything I did. I never understood why I was so famous.
-- Ava Gardner

#Makeup #Directors #Firsts

After my screen test, the director clapped his hands gleefully and yelled: “She can't talk! She can't act! She's sensational!”
-- Ava Gardner

#Hands #Directors #Tests

I'm a believer in trusting the director.
-- B. J. Novak

#Directors #Believer

In Kurdistan, theres a lot of hardship - a lot of wars, a lot of bitter and difficult lifestyles. And witnessing all those made me a director.
-- Bahman Ghobadi

#War #Directors #Hardship

Wong Kar-wai and Ang Lee are two Asian directors I'm really fond of.
-- Bai Ling

#Two #Directors #Asian

When you work with a great director, you realise you are far from being a director.
-- Barkhad Abdi

#Directors #Realising

Casting directors now just see me as the hard-core sniper or prison guard.
-- Barry Pepper

#Directors #Casting #Snipers

There's a whole system in Hollywood where the director never speaks to the studio, but I like to engage them in a discussion. I listen.
-- Baz Luhrmann

#Directors #Hollywood #Speak

In the studio the director controls the actor's every move, every inflection, every expression.
-- Bela Lugosi

#Moving #Expression #Directors

Every single director-actor I talked to, from Warren Beatty to Clint Eastwood to George Clooney, said the biggest mistake they made is not shooting enough footage of themselves.
-- Ben Affleck

#Mistake #Directors #Actors

In cinema, the leading player is the director.
-- Ben Kingsley

#Player #Directors #Cinema

There are some directors, lesser in confidence or skill, who make the actor feel very uncomfortable because you feel you're auditioning for them, every day, and that's a terrible feeling on the set.
-- Ben Kingsley

#Skills #Feelings #Directors

Whatever talent I had, I'm sure it helped that my parents were in the business and that I grew up around actors, comedians and directors.
-- Ben Stiller

#Parent #Comedian #Directors

If you look at the types of directors out there, I'm not as weird as most of them.
-- Benjamin Lewin

#Directors #Looks #Type

For us, as actors, and even for the director, it gave us a sense of authenticity to what we were doing because we were talking about Hollywood and we were in Hollywood
-- Berenice Bejo

#Talking #Directors #Hollywood

I am working as public relations director for the Tour de France and maintaining my farm.
-- Bernard Hinault

#Agriculture #Directors #France