Fincher Quotes & Sayings

I was a disinterested student. — David Fincher

David Fincher is a longtime friend. As a director, my wife had worked with him as a makeup artist when he would do Madonna videos years before, and his child and my oldest child were in preschool together, so we're kind of dad-friends through that, too. — Anthony Edwards

When I look at that now, all I think about is what a master [David Fincher] I was working with, and all of the things I could have watched and learned - and I didn't. And how, now, in my career, how I would love to have a ton of takes. — Jake Gyllenhaal

You can do something that walks a line, and invariably, whatever that line is, it will be crossed by people who don't know any better and want to ape the success. — David Fincher

I adapt to directors, I don't like making directors adapt to me. If I'm with Clint Eastwood then I'll do two takes, if I'm with Fincher I'll do 50 - though the thought of that sounds horrible. — Jennifer Lawrence

Again, a franchise to me doesn't have to be a billion dollar title. — David Fincher

Christians struggle with hypocrisy because of our core confusion about what Christianity means. We tend to believe that Christianity is more about being good than about following Jesus.5 If we believe this, when we try to share our beliefs with others, we talk more about attending church, praying a sinner's prayer, and becoming a good person than about Jesus. The result is that we become known for morality, not for our love of Jesus. — Dale Fincher

David Fincher is probably the best comprehensive director in terms of being a manger of a process that must drive forward. He has such confident command of cinema language and visual language and script and performance. He knows more about f-stops than any cameraman, he knows more about lighting than any gaffer, he is a wonderful writer, and he can give you a good line reading. Under pressure, he is the kind of guy who you will just dive in with and trust and follow because his vision is so intense. — Edward Norton

Some people go to the movies to be reminded that everything's okay. I don't make those kinds of movies. — David Fincher

There really isn't a dream role, but there's a dream situation where I could work with a director that I idolize. So, the idea of working with David Fincher or Paul Thomas Anderson or Wes Anderson or Scorsese or Spielberg or any of the guys I really idolize is a dream for me. — Logan Lerman

What you learn from that first, and I don't call it 'trial by fire,' I call it 'baptism by fire,' is that you are going to have to take all of the responsibility, because basically when it gets right down to it, you are going to get all of the blame, so you might as well have made all of the decisions that led to people either liking it or disliking it. There's nothing worse than hearing somebody say 'Oh, you made that movie? I thought that movie sucked,' and you have to agree with them, you know? — David Fincher

When David Fincher called me up a few years ago and said, 'Hey, I'd like you to score this film 'The Social Network,' I said, 'I'm flattered, but I really don't have any real experience scoring films, and I'd rather not screw it up on a high-profile project. And I like you and I don't want to compromise our friendship.' — Trent Reznor

I have demons you can't even imagine. — David Fincher

Fincher, Kubrick, Lucas, Spielberg, Del Toro, Tarantino. And, of course, Kevin Smith. I spent three months studying every John Hughes teen movie and memorizing all the key lines of dialogue. Only the meek get pinched. The bold survive. You could say I covered all the bases. I studied Monty Python. And not just Holy Grail, either. Every single one of their films, albums, and books, and every episode of the original BBC — Ernest Cline

I like characters who don't change, who don't learn from their mistakes. — David Fincher

I thought 'Fight Club' was great as David Fincher's version. — Chuck Palahniuk

I've recently enjoyed the Paul Thomas Anderson commentaries and the David Fincher commentaries. — Jay Roach

Whatever field you can do that, that's where you want to do it, and I think that's why people like David Fincher and Ridley Scott are interested in it, too, because when you sit down on a meeting in HBO and they're like, "More, more." You're just like, "Oh yeah, I love this." Sometimes it's a little harder in film. I think also it's a great audience, take advantage of it. It's a great audience. — Charlize Theron

I'm friends with [David] Fincher. [James] Cameron gives me advice. I know a fair amount of directors who have been through it, and they all felt pretty confident that I would be fine when I got my shot. So their confidence made me feel confident. — Timothy Miller

I don't know how much movies should entertain. To me I'm always interested in movies that scar. The thing I love about JAWS is that I've never gone swimming in the ocean again. — David Fincher

When you go and you tell a studio and that it's an ensemble, that doesn't mean a lot to them. But, my hats off to Paramount and Warner Brothers, because when we told them that these were the kinds of people that we want to get, across the board, they were unbelieveably enthusiastic about it. — David Fincher

I think intelligence is totally subjective; it's like sexiness. — David Fincher

It's a very American thing to hide away from death. — David Fincher

Sometimes people freak out when you shoot 40 takes of something. They start looking at you like, "What did I do wrong?", and its like "No. It's not wrong. It's just that we are going to try something different." — David Fincher

I'm not doing a Mulder, there was no character reference-point. I think Mark Buchman shot it very David Fincher, but we did not know what the [X-Files] show was going to be. — David Giuntoli

You know, I don't think I've ever listened to someone's commentary. Ever. — David Fincher

It's based not only on what it played like in the theater, but it's also knowing that certain things play differently in a home theater environment. You have different expectations when you're sitting with 700 people than when you're sitting with your friends or family. It's just a different world. — David Fincher

Entertainment has to come hand in hand with a little bit of medicine. — David Fincher

Our Pavlovian response to movies has gotten to its lowest point ever. You look at a lot of movies that are successful and a lot of movies that studios hold up as examples and you go, 'My God, that isn't even a story. It isn't even two acts. It's eight set pieces drawn out with slow motion.' The difficulty for me was that you had to hope that people were interested in this kind of a story. — David Fincher

Pretty girls don't need a lot of education to marry into a rich and powerful family, but girls with an average or ugly appearance will find it difficult. These kinds of girls hope to further their education in order to increase their competitiveness. The tragedy is, they don't realize that as women age, they are worth less and less, so by the time they get their M.A. or Ph.D., they are already old, like yellowed pearls."

- Xinhua News Agency, 2011. Reposted on All-China Women's Federation website days after International Women's Day. — Leta Hong Fincher

Cameron, Gilliam, Jackson, Fincher, Kubrick, Lucas, Spielberg, Del Toro, Tarantino. And, of course, Kevin Smith. — Ernest Cline

I devoured each of what Halliday referred to as "The Holy Trilogies": Star Wars (original and prequel trilogies, in that order), Lord of the Rings, The Matrix, Mad Max, Back to the Future, and Indiana Jones. (Halliday once said that he preferred to pretend the other Indiana Jones films, from Kingdom of the Crystal Skull onward, didn't exist. I tended to agree.)
I also absorbed the complete filmographies of each of his favorite directors. Cameron, Gilliam, Jackson, Fincher, Kubrick, Lucas, Spielberg, Del Toro, Tarantino. And, of course, Kevin Smith.
I spent three months studying every John Hughes teen movie and memorizing all the key lines of dialogue. — Ernest Cline

People always ask why I don't make independent movies. I do make independent movies - I just make them at Sony and Paramount. — David Fincher

When I think about directing a film, the thing that stops me short is wondering if I'm a natural at it the way I think you, and PTA, and Fincher are born directors. Maybe some people's talent is in understanding the ways that film communicates, without dialogue, without plot. — Edward Norton

Diana's great-grandmother Frances Work, or Fanny, as she was known to her family, was an American, and perhaps that is why the Princess always felt such a great affinity for the land across the Atlantic. Fanny's father began his career as a clerk in Ohio and ended up making millions as a financial whiz in Manhattan. A great patriot, he promised to disinherit any of his offspring who married Europeans. But Fanny, like Diana a strong-willed woman, crossed the Atlantic and married British aristocrat James Boothby Burke Roche, who became the third Baron Fermoy. When the marriage broke up, she returned to New York with twin sons and a daughter, and her indulgent father forgave her. — Jayne Fincher

I want people to flourish. I want them to walk away from the experience going, "That's what it should be like." — David Fincher

I don't think I had any idea at the time how to work with someone as masterful as he is. And I don't think at the time I really understood what was happening. I think I was in a space where I was like: there are all these things. I was shooting all these takes with David [Fincher], and I was just confused, as a person, and as an actor feeling a little too big for my britches and that this thing was happening and then also not having enough skill yet, and technique to know exactly where I was, and know about the character. — Jake Gyllenhaal

I like studios. I just don't like bureaucracies. — David Fincher

I was always interested in films that scar. — David Fincher

If I see a movie for the first time on DVD, I watch it all the way through, the lights are down, I don't pick up the phone. The third or fourth time you see a movie, sometimes you just have them on and you check in every once in a while with things that you liked. I think it's a different expectations from that environment. — David Fincher

I want to make a movie that has enough impact that it's going to do what it needs to do. But I don't want to make a film that serial killers masturbate to. — David Fincher

You'll find that the movie business is paid for by those mega movies. The movie business is paid for by Big Macs. By movies as product. Movie studios use that term "product" all the time. Product? You mean you have a lot of stories? No, we have a lot of product. You have stories. — David Fincher

Filmmaking isn't if you can just strap on a camera onto an actor, and steadicam, and point it at their face, and follow them through the movie, that is not what moviemaking is, that is not what it's about. It's not just about getting a performance. It's also about the psychology of the cinematic moment, and the psychology of the presentation of that, of that window. — David Fincher

There were two auditions for 'The Social Network,' one with Aaron Sorkin and one with David Fincher. I was a nervous wreck. I was like, 'Okay, how do I hold the paper without my hands making it shake?' — Armie Hammer

Movies aren't finished, they're abandoned. And you have to make your peace with that. — David Fincher

I'm totally anti-commercialism. — David Fincher

The amount of preparation I saw from someone like [David] Fincher, and how aware he is of everybody else's job on the set, and how much respect he has for every aspect of the film, and every aspect of the frame - that's the type of actor I am now; it's not the type of actor I was then. But without understanding his process, and then coming to learn it later on, I would never be the actor I am now. — Jake Gyllenhaal

How do you shoot a 150-day movie? You shoot it one day at a time. — David Fincher

People said that 'Fight Club' would be impossible to turn into a movie, but I think David Fincher loved that challenge. — Chuck Palahniuk

To me, Fight Club was a comedy. When [David] Fincher sent me the book and I read it, the first thing I asked him was, "This is a comedy, right?" he said, "Yeah, that's the whole point," and I said, "Okay, I'm in." I certainly wasn't imagining myself as a dramatic actor when I was running around in my underwear in that film. — Edward Norton

The two things that got everyone's attention about the 'House of Cards' deal was the two-season commitment and David Fincher. After David Fincher directs a series for Netflix, no one else can say, 'Well, I'm not going to direct a series for the Internet.' — Ted Sarandos

I've never been to Harvard, I've never been to college, so I don't know what dorm life is like. — David Fincher

People are perverts...that's pretty much been the basis of my career anyway. — David Fincher

I love David Fincher - even though it was just two scenes, I loved the way we worked and could tell by the way he was shooting it that this was going to be an affective movie to say the least. — Richard Schiff

For me, the scariest thing about a serial killer is that there's somebody who lives next door to you, running power tools late into the night, and you don't know he has a refrigerator full of penises. — David Fincher

Yet as a director, I don't feel you have to identify with your characters as a requirement to make a movie. — David Fincher

For a number of years, I'd been around the kind of people who financed movies and the kind of people who are there to make the deals for movies. But I'd always had this naive idea that everybody wants to make movies as good as they can be, which is stupid. — David Fincher

It's interesting because when David Fincher was making "Fight Club," he said, "It's a romance." And it really is. Almost everything I ever write is just a romance. And that needed to be sort of pointed up at the end of "Fight Club." The film has a very different ending than the book does. — Chuck Palahniuk

Oh, yeah, I love DVD's. I don't have what you'd call an extensive collection, maybe a couple of hundred or so. But I have something on almost all the time. — David Fincher

Every child is different. Every child responds in a different way. — David Fincher

You can make movies for a select audience, but you have to market it to them. You can make movies for a select audience, but you have to market it to them. — David Fincher

It's a bad day when you don't get the work done that you need to get done or you don't get it done to the satisfaction. — David Fincher

Hire the right people and get the hell out of the way. — David Fincher

We live in a silly time, and people go to the movies to see something that they haven't seen before, and you have to promise to show them that. In a horrible way, you have to promise them a special effect. — David Fincher

I have more faith in doing something creative for a cable station or something like Yahoo or Google or Amazon. What Netflix did with 'House of Cards' and David Fincher was brilliant. That is inspiring to me. I think there is more chance for creativity in animation, it just hasn't happened there yet. — Henry Selick

I like people that like to work the way that I like to work. — David Fincher

I like the idea of R-rated franchises. — David Fincher

I thought that the behavioral and some of the profiling stuff was interesting. The thing that I was most interested in, and the thing that we were really adament about, was let's get these guys who were there on tape, or in some kind of way, telling what happened. No one has really talked to them all. — David Fincher

In 30 years Christians will have baptized their picture of Christ. He won't be a nice, banal, meek, and bearded man with softly permed hair. Instead, he will fill our imaginations more solidly, more invasively , more unexpectedly. Christ will become That Man who changes people, someone who jumps off a bumper sticker and mediocre praise songs and into lives. — Jonalyn Fincher

David Fincher is a genius. — Chuck Palahniuk

When I write something, I want the best director to direct it. And that's not going to be me. So when David Fincher comes along and wants to direct 'The Social Network,' when Bennett Miller comes along and wants to direct 'Moneyball,' or when Danny Boyle wants to direct 'Jobs'? Hallelujah. I want them directing it. — Aaron Sorkin

When you make the kind of movies I make, you get weird letters from people. — David Fincher

I learn the most from making my own mistakes. — David Fincher

My idea of professionalism is probably a lot of people's idea of obsessive. — David Fincher

Everything seems really simple on paper until you take a camera out of the box. — David Fincher

You won't see me on Barbara Walters; Oprah, that's not who I am. — David Fincher

Look, it's nice. I like the fact that critics liked this movie, but most of the movies that I've made, you'll find a handful of people that love it and more than a few other handfuls of people hate it. If I was invested in that, I would've given up long ago. — David Fincher

I want stuff to play as wide as possible. I want to be able to see ... if I could play the whole thing in a master and it could be compelling enough, that'd be great. Then it simplifies my day, it simplifies life for the actors when you could just focus on that. But by the same token I don't want to be forced into coverage. So I want it to be as good from every angle and I need to get as many of the kind of shadings that I want from every angle. — David Fincher

I love so many directors. I love David O. Russell. I love David Fincher, I love Alexander Payne and Jane Campion and my aunt. Spike Jonze. There are just so many amazing directors. — Gia Coppola

You have a responsibility for the way you make the audience feel, and I want them to feel uncomfortable. — David Fincher

I always say everyone was lucky enough to be in a Cate Blanchett movie. — David Fincher

You have the power to pause stuff and you have the power to go to the bathroom. You can do whatever you want in your own home. It's a much more relaxed thing. It's more like a book, it seems to me. That's kind of the way I watch movies. — David Fincher

And I love shooting football. — David Fincher

I have great appreciation for people who do anything well. I think that it's very difficult to do what you do well. — David Fincher

For a romantic comedy to be three hours long, that's longer than most marriages. — David Fincher

Fincher was the kind of Southerner who will try to address you through a web of deep and antic southernness, and who assumes every body in earshot knows all about his parents and history and wants to hear an update about them at every opportunity. He looks young, but still manages to act 65. — Richard Ford

A lot of people hated 'Alien 3.' — David Fincher

[I watch] Fincher, Spielberg, Cameron, McTiernan. Just people who are good at staging action. I like to know where I am. I don't like the kind of cutting where you don't know where you are. — Steven Soderbergh

When I'm watching somebody act, it's a behavior editorial function - I look at someone act, and I might say, 'I don't believe him when he says that.' I don't know why I don't believe him, probably because the people that I've met, they don't act like that when they say stuff like that and mean it. — David Fincher

No one's ever going to make a PG-13 animated film unless David Fincher executive produces it and puts it out on Netflix, and then if it's a success everyone will change. — Henry Selick

I love David Fincher and I think he's a genius. — Trent Reznor

I don't think that digital technology will ever take away the humanity of storytelling, because storytelling is entirely, in and of itself, a wholly human concern. — David Fincher

I think title sequences are an opportunity to sort of set the stage or to get people thinking in different terms than maybe whatever they understand the movie to be going in. — David Fincher

David Fincher is one of the best directors I know, so I'm really curious to see it. Really curious, and I want to hear Daniel have the Swedish accent. — Michael Nyqvist

Human beings are amazing at finding ways to waste their own time. — David Fincher

The simple-minded always look for something - if it's not pornography, it's DVDs or the Internet or video games - but I don't think there's anything inherently evil about Facebook. — David Fincher

You never know what's coming for ya" from the 2008 American romantic fantasy drama film 'The Curious Case of Benjamin Button', directed by David Fincher. — Unknown

I think I'm generally - fear, fear is very still, so in terms of that kind of fear - there's so many different kinds of fear, but fear is something, particularly in movies, that's interesting, because it's created by the film maker, that was created by [David] Fincher, that's why he's brilliant. — Jake Gyllenhaal

There are some movies I can watch over and over, never get sick of. I'll put one of those on and be puttering around the house. Then a certain scene will come on and I'll just have to go over and watch. — David Fincher

When I did 'The Social Network', David Fincher told me that I managed to make a thankless character pretty awesome. I thought that was really cool because I think he's really cool. — Dakota Johnson