Sam Mendes Quotes & Sayings

Shooting action is very, very meticulous, it's increments, tiny little pieces. — Sam Mendes

I've made movies that cost less than one car chase. — Sam Mendes

Politicizing of kids starts with pregnancy, of course. You shouldn't be drinking wine. You can't be smoking, either. The poor woman is poked and prodded and touched and obsessed over. — Sam Mendes

The characters are trapped within the lifestyle. It's about what goes on before the movie starts. — Sam Mendes

Truly great actors carry their characters in silence with them. They communicate without words the relationships that predate the movie. — Sam Mendes

If you lived through the shooting of Jaws, you can live through anything. — Sam Mendes

I suppose once in a while, a filmmaker makes a movie that's more than just a sum of its parts, more than good acting or good filmmaking. It's something else that has nothing to do with what you've done. This is in 1999, made by people in 1999 for people in 1999 about people in 1999. — Sam Mendes

I don't think good and evil are polarized. — Sam Mendes

For me, certain shots or scenes are keys in the movie. — Sam Mendes

I like throwing snowballs at small children. — Sam Mendes

There's good and bad in everybody. I wasn't looking for the good, or looking for the bad. This is a man who signed his pact with the devil 20 years ago, and he's learned to live with it. He's tried to protect his family from it. — Sam Mendes

I am not a master-class director. I am not a teacher. I am a coach. I dont have a methodology. Each actor is different. And on the film set, you have to be next to them all. — Sam Mendes

I still can't quite believe it. Although there was something about the fact that it was a first-time writer, a first-time producer, and a first-time director all at the same time. — Sam Mendes

Every Bond is different and every generation needs a different Bond and it's been able to move with the times. — Sam Mendes

You're in the lap of the gods. If people go, they go, and if they don't. — Sam Mendes

Confidence is essential, but ego is not. — Sam Mendes

The perceived wisdom is that people do not go in large numbers to black-and-white movies anymore - which is a great shame, but I'd love to make a black-and-white movie one day. — Sam Mendes

You think about taking audiences on a journey. — Sam Mendes

It's a risk casting anyone against type or what they're known to do. But there's one thing better than having a great actor, which is having a great actor who's never done what you're asking him to do. He's hungry to get out of the trailer every day and hungry to test himself. — Sam Mendes

This is the first time in 10 years I don't know what I'm doing next, and I'm rather enjoying it. Soon I'll be climbing the walls no doubt, but right now, it's not clear, I'm just enjoying the freedom. — Sam Mendes

As a first-time director in America, I feel I've been very fortunate. — Sam Mendes

I deliberately, in a way, went for something that was a huge challenge and was a big period film. I was excited about the canvas on which I could tell the story as much as the story itself. — Sam Mendes

I don't think of it as a competition - which might surprise you, given the way movies are reported constantly. — Sam Mendes

If you're doing a classic play, where if you do a Chekhov, you do the words as written. You can't do that with a novel; you have to do your version of the words as written. — Sam Mendes

You've got to believe as a filmmaker that if a movie's good enough, it's going to survive; and if it's not, well, it won't. — Sam Mendes

There have been screenwriters who I'm sure would gladly kill me, because I've been very fast and loose with their work, because I felt like it wasn't up to my high standards. I would push and pull it on set, and make changes all the time. But then when you're working with an original screenplay, my theater instincts kick in, and I suddenly become very keeper-of-the-words. — Sam Mendes

I feel like the American years were my apprenticeship for doing a Bond movie. — Sam Mendes

One movie is only one movie. I want to have a lifetime of making films. — Sam Mendes

You've got to work. You've got to want an audience to sit forward in their chairs sometimes, rather than sit back and be bombarded with images. — Sam Mendes

I think movies are a director's medium in the end. Theater is the actor's medium. Theater is fast, and enjoyable, and truly rewarding. I believe in great live performance. — Sam Mendes

All I know is that I operate by going out to each of them and trying to learn the territory in which they operate. My language to each of them has to suit their brain. — Sam Mendes

You just never know when movies are going to take off or not. The lucky thing about this was that it didn't cost a lot of money, and therefore there wasn't loads of pressure on me. — Sam Mendes

Kevin and Annette ... I wanted them to do it together. They clearly wanted to work with each other. — Sam Mendes

The movies that influenced me were movies that told their stories through pictures more than words. — Sam Mendes

Children make you confront your own childhood. Which I think is common. Suddenly you're remembering your own parents as parents, not to mention the fact that you're confronted by them as grandparents. So you also have that terrible shock, a mirror image of your own. You suddenly seem to be so helpless in the face of young children. And you think, "How did you ever bring up me?" — Sam Mendes

I'm certainly getting a lot more mail ... that's basically it. — Sam Mendes

There's one thing better than having a great actor, and that's having a great actor who's never done this kind of role before and is hungry to do it. They're testing themselves every day. They want to get out of their trailer and get to work. — Sam Mendes

I think with Blair Witch and The Sixth Sense, people are much more open to something that is different. — Sam Mendes

I wanted to keep exploring ... I'm not about to choose a series of movies in which I can use the same bag of tricks and style that I used in the first film. — Sam Mendes

The joy of a road movie is its very simple narrative nature, which is that you know you're going to go through different places and you're going to meet new people. At the same time, you have to not make it feel too obvious and too crudely episodic. — Sam Mendes

I want to inspire, and be inspired. — Sam Mendes

Actors get pigeonholed very quickly, particularly movie actors. In the theater, one is more used to casting people against type and trusting that their talent and skill will get them through. — Sam Mendes

The moment you have kids, you are prey to judgment, but you also become a judge. You find yourself going, "Can you believe what she did with such-and-such?" at school. — Sam Mendes

Listen, you make a big movie, you're going into the Coliseum, and people are going to give you the thumbs up or the thumbs down. And that's part of the game. It's part of the fun as well. — Sam Mendes

The importance of rehearsal is maybe you want to talk about how the scene's going to be designed, how it's going to be staged, all of those things. It's all about preparation, and deciding what mutually you don't want to do, rather than necessarily what you do. — Sam Mendes

Now I'm back home, living in London, running my theater. I just want to enjoy all that. — Sam Mendes

When I drive through a field, I want to see green grass sometimes, and I don't want to see black and white. — Sam Mendes

Thank God I don't live in Los Angeles. I think if you're there the whole time it just gets out of proportion and you lose touch completely with reality. — Sam Mendes

It took me a long time to film the plastic bag, and then I had to get the cut of the scene right. But if you find it as beautiful as the character does, then suddenly it becomes a different movie, and so did he as a character. — Sam Mendes

You freeze with the number of opportunities given to you and just decide to do nothing at all. — Sam Mendes

One of the reasons I loved working with Tom is people feel they know who he is ... I think working with an actor who the audience already has a relationship with actually helps you in a film like this. — Sam Mendes

Learn to say, "I don't know the answer." It could be the beginning of a very good day's rehearsal. — Sam Mendes

I want to try and work in different genres with different types of actors, on small movies and big movies. — Sam Mendes

Directing Skyfall was one of the best experiences of my professional life, but I have theatre and other commitments, including productions of Charlie And The Chocolate Factory and King Lear, that need my complete focus over the next year and beyond. — Sam Mendes