Best Directors Quotes

The more successful the villain, the more successful the picture.

I myself am a Buddhist, not a Christian. But I cannot help but think that if Christ ran a public establishment, it would be open to all, and He would be the last to refuse service to anyone. It is, simply put, the most un-Christian of notions.

Rewriting the negative beliefs you have learned is the essence of becoming the director of your life.

I started out as a writer and a director. I started acting because I wanted to know how to relate to the actors. When people ask me what I do, I don’t really say that I’m an actor, because actors often wait for someone to give them roles.

Voyeurism is a director’s job description. It’s an artist’s, too.

The core of a director is the person’s tastes in what elements go together and how they go together. It’s a puzzle.

I have to be strong about my own tastes because I think that’s what the director’s job is.

My biggest advice for women writer/directors is to always be attempting to make work that avoids pandering to the conceptions that the industry has put in place for women directors.

Where else do you find great directors? Acting is one of the places.

I started working with James [Schamus] early on, and my role as an executive producer was more about being involved in the conversations of putting the film together. I didn’t have to do much work because James is the most experienced first-time director you could imagine.

It’s a collaborative art form where we can both learn something from the other. That’s what you want from the relationship with a director.

Even if I loved the script, the director has to be right because it’s all about the filmmaker. It’s their vision. They’re the ones that go back into the editing room and reassemble the film.

Directors and producers were afraid of a Dumont actor while at the same time they admired him.

Getting the role in ‘300’ saved me. I’d been out of work for 11 months after ‘The Brothers Grimm.’ Once the film came out and didn’t do so well, the director Terry Gilliam blamed me for absolutely everything. It was pretty appalling, and I had started to wonder if I’d ever get another job again when I was asked to audition for ‘300.

You hear again and again that audiences want to see movies that are different and critics say we [directors] make the same thing again and again in Hollywood, then you go and make something different and you get kicked in the gut for it.

I think it’s very easy to get caught up and think that how many hits you get in a magazine because you were seen out somewhere has anything to do with a director’s opinion of you, and whether they could use you or not.

When I became a director, I wanted to convince a very reluctant Sidney into allowing me to go on the journey of his life. Sidney had gone ahead of every other African American actor.

As a writer, you have to be willing to kill your darlings, and I’m a writer first. As a director, I’ve got no problem cutting the scenes.

Picking projects, it’s always director first and then script. Those two things are pretty much head-to-head.

I would love to meet some directors, and why not do some other movies in America? But, I’m not obsessed with this idea. I’m feeling very free in Europe.

It’s really hard as a screenwriter, you feel like you have a vision and then you turn it over to a director and you have to let it go.

I have a strong and strange character, and I’ve rarely met directors who knew what to do with this character. One of the few who did was my father, and in the theatre, Arthur Nauzyciel.

In order to make a movie it isn’t enough to have a script, it isn’t enough to have a director, it isn’t enough to have a male actor and a female actor, it isn’t enough to have financing. You have to have them all at the same instant.

My ideal role would be the lead in a film with a director that I really appreciate and admire.

It’s so hard to find a director who, when you look at their body of work, you like everything.

I’m not tough when it comes to people criticizing the people that I protect, and those are the actors. It makes them scared to do it again for another director.

I’m just trying to find a good project. Work with a good director, someone I really admire. Find a good role.

I will never become a director or a movie producer. I was always looking at picture directing because I didn’t know what to do! You can’t be a movie director without real preparation.

A male director doesn’t come to situations the same way that a female director would.

A lot of times passion projects or films are difficult to make because they don’t have proven directors attached to them.

I absolutely loved it, and I loved the way the character of D’Artagnan had been portrayed. I was just well up for it. So, I went in and met (director) Toby [Haynes], and as soon as I got into that room, to see how excited everybody was to get this underway and onto the set, it just drew me to it, even more. It was an instant attraction, so I was delighted when I got the offer.

The director, of course, was Bob Fosse. But again, I worked with my father to prepare for the role.

Every casting director I’ve met is a woman.

I enjoy collaborating with all of the directors I have worked with. I love collaborating with creative people on interesting projects.

I made the transition to directing documentaries with the great help of my Co-Director on The World According to Sesame Street, Linda Hawkins Costigan. She was a gracious teacher, and a wonderful collaborator.