Director Of Movie Quotes & Sayings

It's too bad about 'Dark of the Sun.' It was really about Tshombe. When I read the script, I thought it was going to be a political movie, and I thought we might even have a hassle. But the director simplified it to brutality and bad taste. — Jim Brown

The first movie I did was 'Dan in Real Life,' which was directed by Peter Hedges, the same director who did 'The Odd Life of Timothy Green.' — CJ Adams

I like the old school heavy metal bands like AC/DC and Aeromith. I like that type of music. As the director, I tried to influence the type of music the bands in the movie would play. — Dolph Lundgren

One thing I would like to do, as the director, I would really like to shoot the movie widescreen, 2.35:1, which we haven't done in any of the movies yet and I think that would really provide another opportunity for scares and suspense, particularly because since Chucky, our villain, is only two feet tall, it makes sense to define the space horizontally rather than vertically. I think that will take it to another level. — David Kirschner

I always choose my movie because of a director and a story and a, a character. — Melanie Laurent

Movies are a director's medium, and they end up getting less credit than actors. They get the flak if the movie doesn't do well, and the actor walks away with most of the credit if the film does well. — Ranbir Kapoor

The thing that I think a director has to have in order to make a movie really work, and to certainly make a film that feels personal, which I hope this one does, is that you have to have a sense of the feeling that you want to create in people, the tone which you want to tell the story, and the basic themes you want to come out. You can't compromise on those because you are then not making the movie that you are going to be good at telling. — George Nolfi

In a way, all Scandinavian movies are descendants of the original Scandinavian Christian-metaphor movie, Danish director Carl Dreyer's 1928 'The Passion of Joan of Arc,' one of the seven or eight best films ever made and impossible to watch more than once. — Steve Erickson

It's not like every director in every movie is seeking me out by any means, there are a lot of things I'm not suited for, a lot of things I'm not interested in, and a lot of things that directors wouldn't be interested in me for. — John Hawkes

And so as a director, as a leader, and myself as a director and a leader, I kind of try to make sure that we hold onto the vision and kind of corral it, but by the time you finish whatever the project is, a TV show, a series, a movie, a stage show, it should be a product of what all those people can do, and therefore, it can never be what you imagined it would be in the beginning. — Brian Henson

We often hear of a male director directing a great indie and immediately being offered the next huge comic book movie. Rarely, if ever, does this happen to a woman. — Lesli Linka Glatter

Unless you're the director on the movie, or putting up the money for the movie, you really don't have a lot of control. — Bret Easton Ellis

I did this one movie with a great director named Wayne Kramer. It was 'Crossing Over,' and Harrison Ford, Ashley Judd and Ray Liotta were in it. I was one of the leads, and I thought this was it. It got shelved for two years, and then it was in theaters maybe a week. After that, I adopted a philosophy of, 'Hope for the best, expect the worst.' — Justin Chon

Given that most movies are bad, and that there are whole categories and sub-categories of badness - the sequel, the Madonna Movie, the Friday 13th Series, or Movies Starring John Travolta Before Pulp Fiction - it is almost impossible to choose a single film for worst movie of all time. But strangely, I do have a nomination and I believe it is actually the worst movie ever made. It is Boxing Helena. The director is David Lynch's daughter, and the film comes with the almost insane-making faults that the family connection might imply. — Andrew O'Hagan

I'm like a movie director, so wherever I feel that I need to go over this type of beat, that's what I'm going to do, that's where I'm going to go. — Ghostface Killah

I was thrown in the deep end at 18 when I got cast in a movie that I didn't audition for. The director just sort of found me and put me in a film, so the decision was really made for me. — Teresa Palmer

I think the whole nostalgia for the forty year gap for [Sylvester] Stallone was bigger than the movie [Creed], but it's good because the movie still gets recognized with Stallone's involvement. I'm sure the director [Ryan Coogler] is still proud of his film, but it's very hard to nominate a director. — Bun B.

A director shouldn't get in the way of the movie, the story should. — Frank Darabont

I believe that there's good content or bad content. You see interviews when somebody interviews a director of a movie that didn't perform well in the box office, and he says, 'The audience didn't understand my movie.' If people didn't go to buy the ticket, then you did the wrong movie. — Emilio Azcarraga Jean

I've never seen a movie director who was happier to be directing a movie than Dave [Mamet]. His sets, everyone who's ever been involved with one of them will tell you of the funnest, funniest sets you can be on. — Clark Gregg

It had the word bitches in it, which is perfectly fine to use if you're a rapper or a director making a movie about career women, but not if you're a teen girl talking about her homies."
"Good point, Petra. We know that young ladies of the teen persuasion do not use these indelicate words. Nor do they have thoughts about sex, masturbation, violence, being competitive, or farting. — Libba Bray

The process of making a movie has expanded in terms of effort and time for the director, doing commentaries for the DVD for example, finishing deleted scenes so they could be on the DVD, and doing things like a web blog. — David Cronenberg

I mean, I understand that Scrubs was my big break, but sooner or later you have to move on. I've already directed a movie, which received very good reviews, so it just seems much more important to me now. I feel that in order to better foster my creativity as an actor and director at this point, I need to be surrounded by other talented, artistic individuals, instead of just goofy comedians. — Zach Braff

To have a director that loves his actors is something that you can see in the film and in the fruits of that labor. You can see that translated in the film. When you watch such movie, you can see a director who loves his actors, and it shines through the movie, in my eyes. — Vin Diesel

The Nazis, for him, are merely available movie tropes
articulate monsters with a talent for sadism. By making the Americans cruel, too, he escapes the customary division of good and evil along national lines, but he escapes any sense of moral accountability as well. In a Tarantino war, everyone commits atrocities. Like all the director's work after 'Jackie Brown,' the movie is pure sensation. It's disconnected from feeling, and an eerie blankness
it's too shallow to be called nihilism
undermines even the best scenes. — David Denby

I have a way of filming things and staging them and designing sets. There were times when I thought I should change my approach, but in fact, this is what I like to do. It's sort of like my handwriting as a movie director. And somewhere along the way, I think I've made the decision: I'm going to write in my own handwriting. — Wes Anderson

My favorite movie out of the old movies was 'Escape to Witch Mountain.' We were working with horses and bears, and when you have a great friend like Ike and a great director ... it was a great experience. — Kim Richards

When you are shooting a movie, you have to collaborate with many, many, many people. First of all, the director with all his own ideas and I can only just help him with that. I cannot change his idea. — Vilmos Zsigmond

You make a movie, and if there's a red light flashing in the distance, everyone thinks that the director had a whole lot of money and a great idea that the red light means something. Then you say, 'Yeah, we couldn't afford to shut the red light off that was broken two blocks away.' — Dito Montiel

I found it to be more challenging to be in a huge effects movie, because a lot of the things aren't there. You have to trust the director and react to nothing. — Katie Holmes

All the director wants is their idea of the movie to be believed in. — Mark Romanek

Bill Gates is said to be Aspergian. Musician Glenn Gould is said to have been Aspergian, along with scientist Albert Einstein, actor Dan Aykroyd, writer Isaac Asimov, and movie director Alfred Hitchcock. As adults, none of those people would be described as disabled, but they were certainly eccentric and different. — John Elder Robison

To me the only real star of the movie is the writer. And I work with writers very closely, from outline to first draft and on to the seventh draft, whatever it takes. Then my job is to support the director to make the best movie we can. Some producers try to go past them, but my job is to support them. — Dino De Laurentiis

Rob [Reiner] is a teddy bear. He's hell delicious. He's a really good director. He's a great soul. In the movie business, I would call him a movie mom. The only person I hold in equal esteem is Clint Eastwood. Now I have worked with a lot of terrific directors, and I don't mean to be putting any of them below their own station, but these two, I relish working with them. — Morgan Freeman

I joined the Madras Christian College but dropped out after three months. Telugu music director Ramesh Naidu asked me to assist him, and I did so for over a year. I did think of rejoining college, but by then, I was discovering the musician in me. I worked with Illaya Raja and Raj Koti and soon shifted to commercials. This led to movie offers. — A.R. Rahman

The movie Ed Wood, about the worst director of all time, was made to prepare us for Stargate. — Roger Ebert

In film, I was surprised when I first saw the movie 'Drive.' I said, 'Oh, God. It sounds great - I love it. Wow, this could be the soundtrack from 'American Gigolo' or 'Cat People.' But I'm surprised that the director would agree with a composer to write that kind of sound. — Giorgio Moroder

I read the books the day before I had met with (director) Catherine Hardwicke. The first I heard of it was my agent called and said, 'Do you want to be in a vampire movie?' and I said 'No.' I thought it was like a zombie, blood-and-guts, vampire movie. — Peter Facinelli

I'm not as eager to go just work to work. I have another life outside of it, and if I'm pretty sure the movie's not going to have a life, or if it's not a director I believe in, then I probably will say no. — Scott Speedman

The size of budgets does not alter my decision if I should do it. If there's a movie with a budget of only $1 million that I find interesting, then I'll sign up, but it has to be in the hands of a director who can do something with it. Ultimately, it's a director's medium. — Andy Garcia

Despite his reputation as one of America's foremost "serious" filmmakers, Oliver Stone's name under the "director" caption does not guarantee a good movie. I learned that lesson while enduring the seemingly-endless tedium of The Doors , and was reminded of it during some of the long, drawn-out portions of JFK . However, nothing that Stone has directed or misdirected prepared me for the grotesque mess that is Natural Born Killers . — James Berardinelli

Realistically, it's the great truism that screenwriters are fungible, that at the end of the day a studio is not going to want to fire a movie star. And they're really not going to want to fire a star director because the director has the hand on the tiller of a ship. — John Logan

For me, it's important that a movie is the congregate of all art forms, from writing to art composition to music to performing. Trying to keep a balance of all those is what I think a director's job is. — Mick Garris

You can't see any movie nowadays really without it having some sort of CGI treatment, albeit whether it's a creature or an environment, something like that. To make a point, sort of poetically in that case, but clearly it was a drama and how do you approach it? Well, I think what you're supposed to do is what the text dictates. What you bring to it and everything you need to know should be there, and pay attention to your director. — Brendan Fraser

I had come to the point when I realized it was unlikely that my film career was going to move beyond a certain level of role. And I was - because I had graphic instances of it - handicapped by the success of Star Trek. A director would say, 'I don't want Jean-Luc Picard in my movie' - and this was compounded by X-Men as well. — Patrick Stewart

The surviving human beings there could do nothing but wait for the end to come. They chose different ways to live out their final days. That was the plot.** It was a dark movie offering no hope of salvation. (Though, watching it, Aomame reconfirmed her belief that everyone, deep in their hearts, is waiting for the end of the world to come.)
**
On the Beach, the 1959 movie, director: Stanley Kramer, writer: John Paxton, starring: Gregory Peck, Ava Gardner, Fred Astaire & Anthony Perkins. On the Beach, the 1957 novel, writer: Nevil Shute. — Haruki Murakami

For me, the greatest kind of success that I've had on a particular project or in exploring a role does come through collaboration. I wouldn't want to do a movie where everything I do the director just says, "Good job" and I'm under directed. — Miles Teller

I liked 'Robocop' because of the director, and it was an intelligent, big-action studio movie. — Michael Keaton

Who would have thought that [director] Cameron Crowe had a movie as bad as Vanilla Sky in him? It's a punishing picture, a betrayal of everything that Crowe has proved he knows how to do right. — Stephanie Zacharek

[Director Christopher] Nolan has not only crafted the best Batman movie, but arguably the second-best motion picture superhero narrative (topped only by the linked duo of Superman and Superman II ). For those who thought Spider-Man and X-Men had a lot to offer, wait till you see where this film goes ... Batman Begins is a strong re-start to a franchise that deserves better than it has often been accorded. — James Berardinelli

In the neighborhood around Waseda, there were all these movie theaters, so every morning I left the house and watched movies instead of going to class. The experience of encountering films then is one of my greatest memories. Before that I'd never paid any attention to directors, but there I was taking a crash course in Ozu, Kurosawa, Naruse, Truffaut, Renoir, Fellini. Because I've always been naturally a more introspective person, I was more interested in becoming a screenwriter than a director. — Hirokazu Koreeda

I'm a curious person. I pursue things based on what sparks my interest. I'm not thinking about what role I play. I don't have to be a movie director or this or that. I just want to be part of projects and places that are of interest to me. — Roman Coppola

If you talk to any director, they'll say music is fifty percent of the movie. — Hans Zimmer

Oliver Stone is a great director and I've seen many films over the years, but I try to create stuff out of my own imagination. I want to break all the rules and mess about with it and make a different movie just for the fun of it. — Anthony Hopkins

Some very eminent critics writing in the decades immediately after the novel's publication felt that Eliot failed to maintain sufficient critical distance in her depiction of Ladislaw
that she fell in love with her own creation in a way that shows a lack of artistic control and is even unseemly, like a hoary movie director whose lens lingers too long on the young flesh of a favored actress. Lord David Cecil calls Ladislaw 'a schoolgirl's dream, and a vulgar one at that,' while Leslie Stephen complained 'Ladislaw is almost obtrusively a favorite with his creator,' and depreciated him as 'an amiable Bohemian. — Rebecca Mead

When I get hired as an actor as opposed to a writer, one of things that's exciting for me is doing stuff I wouldn't normally do myself. So whether it's a kid's movie or a voice in animation or in this case - where I just get to be silly, it's a different kind of comedy for me. As a performer, it's a different pleasure than when you're writing or directing. As a performer, you're just in the hands of the director and you go with whatever they want to do. — Stephen Merchant

A lot of times the character's experience is not in accordance with the tone of the movie and it's not really my job to account for the tone of the movie. That's the director's job. — Jesse Eisenberg

Has it ever happened, you've seen a striking film, beautifully written and acted and photographed, that you walk out of the theater glad to be a human being and you say to yourself I hope they make a lot of money from that? I hope the actors, I hope the director earns a million dollars for what they've done, what they've given me tonight? And you go back and see the movie again and you're happy to be a tiny part of the system that is rewarding those people with every ticket ... the actors I see on the screen, they'll get twenty cents of this very dollar I'm paying now; they'll be able to buy an ice cream cone any flavor they want from their share of my ticket alone. Glorious moments in art in books and films and dance, they're delicious because we see ourselves in glory's mirror. — Richard Bach

I remember in the Carpenter version, you got acquainted with the characters and really knew them. It was a real character piece. Each actor was serviced in the movie, and we tried to do that in this movie as well. I like the fact that there was a European, first-time director. I'd known of him because I'm from Europe. I knew him as a commercial director and thought one of his commercials was great. I thought it was an interesting take on such a big-budget cult classic. — Adewale Akinnuoye-Agbaje

Although my perception might have been distorted by melancholy, it seemed to me that most of those people were in pairs, the larger percentage of them holding hands, as if they were extras in a movie of high romance, accessorizing a scene for which the director's purpose might have been to say that life was a parade lived two-by-two, as it had been since before Noah's fabled ark and as it would be always. — Dean Koontz

I saw 'Alien' when I was 8 years old. To me, it was like a combination of Jaws and Star Wars, and that's the movie that made me want to be a director. — Eli Roth

I've made quite a number of movies like Castaway and a few others where I'm the only guy in the movie and the only place to be is right next to the camera in costume ready to go in order to get it. The years, and more specifically probably the four months prior to beginning shooting, is where the big preparation is that the director does because I knew we were going to get on the set. And the good news is, if you're the boss, if it ain't good, you don't use it. You just cut it out. — Tom Hanks

I've never acted before in a movie I've directed. This felt like the time to do it just because the " Leaves of Grass" movie itself is so much of a platform for the lead actor. It's really written for an exciting performance and it really depends on the audience watching an extraordinary actor having a great time pulling off this feat. It makes sense to me as a director to act in support of that. — Edward Norton

When I make a movie, I don't break it down and analyze it. I could but it would get in the way of doing a job - on instinct based on all the research we did going in. you want to trust yourself and your director and your acting partners in the circumstances you're shooting. I don't like to have any kind of overview. — Viggo Mortensen

If everyone's comfortable, you can pretty much make any kind of movie that the director wants. — Jeff Fahey

Actors can make five movies a year. A director can make one movie, every two years. It's a whole different level of commitment and of sweat equity, and therefore there's a direct correlation to passion. — Joseph McGinty Nichol

Fundamentally, I always find that most of the films that I've put out are essentially the director's cut. Part of the process with a director's cut is the leaving behind of certain aspects of the movie that we don't feel necessary because they aren't part of the dynamic of the story. — Ridley Scott

I definitely managed to do different kinds of things. My focus is usually who the director is, because at the end of the day the director is the storyteller, what the movie is all about. I don't want to participate in something that I don't think is constructive storytelling. — Bryce Dallas Howard

I'm certainly not going to tell other people what they should do with their own personal lives. I think it's certainly easier for a director to be out. The public is not going to see a movie because the director is gay or straight. It's maybe a little harder for an actor or actress because of, you know, the love roles and stuff. But gay people have been impersonating heteros in the movies for years. So, hopefully, that is becoming less of an issue. I think it would have been really great if a gay person had played a gay person. That's brave! — John Waters

Well, I wasn't just kind of standing in a queue at McDonald's and someone sat down and said, 'You're the director of a $100 million Hollywood movie.' I've been working in commercials for ten years. — Rupert Sanders

I think what makes a good actor's director is the same thing that makes a good director. Acting is just one of the trades necessary to make a movie. — Matt Damon

Some of my favorite scenes aren't in the movie. Because you, at some point, realize that your responsibility as director is purely to the story. It's not to your pleasure. — Mark Ruffalo

I personally find that each instalment has a different director, cast and crew, and I've also been in a different season in my life for each of them, so I feel like each movie is a unique experience that centres around my undying passion for music and dance. — Alyson Stoner

Each of us gets to choose the movie of our life. Not only that, but we're the main character, the director, and the producer. So we get to choose how we want it to be.
From the Soul of Uncertainty — Mark Susnow

Don't let negative pictures play on the movie screen of your mind. You are the director and the audience. You are in charge. Take the remote control. Change the channel. If you let your imagination run wild, let it run wild in a positive direction. — Joel Osteen

It's not hard to understand why an accomplished director like Gus Van Sant (whose most recent success, Good Will Hunting , gave him mainstream clout) would be interested in making this film. The lure of an exact remake presents a tremendous challenge. Unfortunately, it was undoubtedly a lot more stimulating for Van Sant and his crew to make Psycho than it is for an audience to watch it. [C]uriosity is going to be one of the primary reasons why people pay money to see this movie; boredom will be the predominant result. — James Berardinelli

You have to have the essential pleasure of making a movie. It's such a huge factor and adventure for a director because you really are the leader and the captain. — Audrey Tautou

When I'm writing a movie, it's usually pretty close to what the movie is going to be, which is just a luxury of being a writer-director. — J. C. Chandor

After directing movies, I respect any director in this world, because making a movie as a director is tons and tons of work. — Jordi Molla

Frank Capra, Hollywood's Horatio Alger, lights with more cinematic know-how and zeal than any other director to convince movie audiences that American life is exactly like the 'Saturday Evening Post' covers of Norman Rockwell. 'It's A Wonderful Life,' the latest example of Capracorn, shows his art at a hysterical pitch. — Manny Farber

Nothing beats novel writing because it's complete expression of you. You just control everything. Not even a movie director has that level of control. — Tom Perrotta

You always like to be the collaborator. I don't want to take over the movie, because if I want to do that, I should really become a director because then you have the control of everything, basically. I'm very happy to just be the visual part of it, doing the visual part of the movie. — Vilmos Zsigmond

A movie has its own fate, which often doesn't depend on the performances of the director and actors. — Zhang Ziyi

As I told the students every time I visited a campus, you are the director of your own movie, and if you aren't enjoying what you are doing, change it. — Gary Johnson

If you look at the least effective of the 'Twilight' movies, it was when they brought in an action-movie director instead of a director who was really a good storyteller. And you can tell the difference. — Mark Waters

I came in on this movie after there had been a director and I came in after Tom Courtenay had talked to Ron Harwood about making a movie. So, you know Tom and Albert Finney had been friends since the beginning of their career as they became stars around the same time - Tom always reminds me that Albert was first with Saturday Night and Sunday Morning and then Tom with The Long Distance Runner. — Dustin Hoffman

The marvels of daily life are exciting; no movie director can arrange the unexpected that you find in the street. — Robert Doisneau

When you're in sync with the director, on the type of movie you want to make, the arc of the characters, how the characters intertwine and interact, plotlines and story, and things like that, it really makes a difference. — Dwayne Johnson

I'm just saying to everyone. The director does not direct the trailer. It's an edited version that takes so many moments of the movie, sometimes it's not even in the movie. The director does the movie. So don't judge the director based on the trailer. Please. — Michel Gondry

I think the power of the short film is incredibly underrated. It is way easier to get someone to watch a 15-minute film then a full-length feature. In those 15 minutes you have the opportunity to express your voice as an artist and hopefully connect with your audience. If you are trying to be a first time feature director then a short film that demonstrates you have a grasp on the themes and concepts of the movie you want to direct is a no-brainer. Whether they are collaborators or potential investors, filmmaking is a visual art form so you obviously need visuals to show them! — Nicholas Ozeki

The director of 'Independence Day,' 'Godzilla' and 'The Patriot' has certain attributes, all of which are given full vent in 'The Day After Tomorrow.' He's crude, stupid, slick, cornball, predictable, laughable, relentless, trivial and, the sum of all these, ridiculous. He's never made a movie you could believe and he still hasn't. — Stephen Hunter

For John Woo, it is quite difficult to make a movie in Hollywood in his own style. Because Hollywood is based on a producer system, it is difficult for a director to express himself using his own style of filmmaking. — Alan Mak

It's very hard to admit that the choice of 3D technology can play an important role for the director while he's thinking about the movie. But it does play a big role. — Fedor Bondarchuk

Aside from a couple of signature flourishes, there's nothing to mark Paycheck as the product of acclaimed action director John Woo. In fact, there's little about this movie that makes it worth anyone's time and money. With a script that waffles between being hilariously absurd and insultingly stupid, and action scenes that won't cause anyone's pulse to skip a beat, Paycheck is less appealing than a lump of coal in a Christmas stocking. — James Berardinelli

You know, making an animated movie is such a lonesome thing. You mostly don't see your fellow actors or anything. You go into your booth, you record all your dialogue. It's very much an issue of trust. You leave it all up to the director. — Julie Andrews

A great director or leader knows his people, creates a great team, and then makes a great movie that can influence millions more than the readers of his column. — Warren Bennis

When you make a movie, you do it so piecemeal. You're doing it, not only scene by scene, out of order, but shot by shot, line by line. And there's this idea that the director has the whole thing in his or her head and they're going to somehow weave it all together in the end. — Jason Reitman

There's this movie, 'Zero Dark Thirty' about the hunt for Osama bin Laden. Some have complained that too many 'secrets' were dished out by the intelligence and special operations communities to director Kathryn Bigelow, screenwriter Mark Boal and their crew, part of a broader pattern of using intelligence for political effect. — Michael Hayden

I did a good bit of episodic television directing, but directing a movie is so much more complicated. And there's so much more responsibility because the medium is very much a director's medium. Television is much more of a producer's writer's medium so a lot of the time when you're directing a television show they have a color palette on set or a visual style and dynamic that's already been predetermined and you just kind of have to follow the rules. — Jason Bateman

My biggest role as director on the film is keeping a sense of the overview - how to cast the movie and shoot it in such a way that it will cut together. And how to design the style and tone. — Jay Roach