Independent Film Quotes & Sayings
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Top Independent Film Quotes

I mean, I made The Phantom, although The Phantom was, believe it or not, an independent film. It was just a very large, expensive independent film. — Gerard Butler

I've had a lot of experience in independent film, and about how to choose. You've got to be very discerning about where you put your five bucks, and where you cut and what you don't cut. — Ethan Hawke

I'm always struck by the kids who turn up in New York and LA, and places in between. Chicago. Wanting to do theater, wanting to do independent film. Wanting to break into television or radio. — Frank Rich

There's plenty of great independent films to do, but you can't support yourself making independent film as an actress. — Gaby Hoffmann

And you know, we did it as an independent film, and we weren't expecting it to be on television, and Lifetime ended up buying it. And the viewers responded intensely to that film. — Jenna Elfman

I love the new technology in terms of giving access to doing more independent work. When I first started out, any film had to rent from Panavision and the expenses were humongous. Now, given the advances in technology, you can put out extraordinary quality filmmaking at nothing like the price it used to be. — Kathleen Turner

In the beginning, it wasn't even a question of deciding I'm going to do independent film and not commercial films - I wasn't being offered any commercial films, and there wasn't an independent scene. — Steve Buscemi

I met Roger Ebert at an independent-film awards or something. And he said, 'When I saw you just now, I wanted to punch you in the face. And then I had to remember you're an actor. So, congratulations!' Those are my accolades. — Leo Fitzpatrick

It takes a while for audiences on film to see you as something different if they've seen you for so long as a specific character. It's up to the actor to be like, 'Look man, let's try something else,' even if it's an ultra-low-budget independent. People who rep you will keep going with whatever they can send you on. — Omar Dorsey

With independent film, as an actor, you have more involvement - it's very much more connected. It's not just like I'm showing up and there's another actor on the call sheet; you're very attached to it. — Alia Shawkat

The only place that I'd be worried about being typecast is the independent film world. — Michelle Rodriguez

On the set of an independent film you can tell that nobody is doing it for the money. Everyone is there because they love the script. A smaller budget sort of unifies everyone; it's a real team effort and that's amazing. But these opportunities just don't present themselves that often for me, so basically any chance I get to do something different I jump on it. — Will Ferrell

I love good film, whether it's an independent or studio film. The independent films, I think the good ones aren't necessarily eccentric ones but they're the more specific ones. — Matthew McConaughey

A few nights ago I went to a Hollywood screening of a small independent film made by Sally Kirkland, an old friend of mine who also did terrific job acting in it. There were other actors in it and they were all terrific. — Nick Mancuso

From a production point of view, I still have one foot firmly planted in the independent film world, and much of the shooting on 'Jumper' was done 'Swingers'-style because that was the only way we could afford to do it. — Doug Liman

I watch many, many, many independent films every year that you see once in a film festival and they're never heard of ever again. Many of them are very, very good. — Karen Allen

When I was in New York I heard many people saying that the independent film industry was in big trouble. I was reflecting on this when I came home. Realizing that ever since I started filmmaking, people have being saying that. But somehow it keeps going. Filmmakers keep going. We need stories to make sense of the world and some people like me are driven to tell them. I have faith this will always be possible. — Andrea Arnold

I see horror as part of legitimate film. I don't see it as an independent genre that has nothing to do with the rest of cinema. — Guillermo Del Toro

I was very happy with Vampire's Kiss, which in my opinion was almost like an independent laboratory to start realizing some of my more expressionistic dreams with film performance. Then using what I had learned in Vampire's Kiss and putting it into a very big action movie in the form of Face/Off with John Woo. If you look at those two movies back to back, you can see where I stole from my performance in Vampire's Kiss. — Nicolas Cage

Which is why I felt I was truly blessed this year, with leads in two nice films, and also the luxury of being able to do a studio film and an independent afterwards was fantastic. — Rachel True

I think there's a time and place to watch an independent film, or catch up on a French action film on your laptop, or Netflix it, or download it, or watch it on-demand. But I think we also have to maintain the sacredness of the movie theatre as church - especially with event screenings. — Robert Englund

I've really enjoyed the independent film world. I've had a blast. But, the reality is that I really want to make bigger movies. If I could make movies that carry great characters and great performances and great pathos, and can have an explosion or two, that would be fine with me. — Matthew Lillard

The great thing about an independent film is that you're too busy working, and you're too busy hoping to God to get it done. — Ann Dowd

Independent film is film that has thought in it. There's no independent thought in studio films. It's collective thought. — Seymour Cassel

It's never easy getting an independent film made and distributed - even when it's easy. — Paul Dinello

The first time I took acid, I made the decision that I would stay in New York and find an independent film company to get a job with. — Lloyd Kaufman

I did very much enjoy being part of an independent film. It was just the energy. — Kylie Minogue

Many of us had this idea of doing independent film, of making personal, relevant films, as opposed to Hollywood fluff. I directed a few. — Robert Kane Pappas

They make three types of movies, and if you don't make one of those three, you have to find independent financing: It's either big-action superhero tent-pole thing, or it's an animated film, or it's an R-rated, raunchy sex comedy. They don't make movies about real people. — Rob Reiner

Take away the love and the laughter, narrate the stories as if the characters had acted with malice and self-absorption, and everybody was in a bleak independent film about alcoholism and schizophrenia and child abuse. — Nick Hornby

I've love to do more movies. Just because I'm interested in the medium very much. I've done a lot of theatre at this point, and I've done a lot of TV. I've done a few independent films, but a lot of them have not seen the light of day. It'd be really nice to be in a film that gets out there. — Morena Baccarin

I believe that independent film making is the last frontier of creative expression available. So I'm always willing to lend a helping hand to a young film maker who's just getting into the business. — Lloyd Kaufman

When I hear the word 'independent' I reach for my revolver. At this point, what the hell does that mean? The English Patient is an independent film. Hootie and the Blowfish are alternative music. I'm the Queen of Denmark. I don't know what it means anymore. — Jim Jarmusch

I am an independent film-maker first and foremost. I have always cut my own cloth. — Mira Nair

The good thing about the studio is that, when the movie comes out, they will put their marketing and their money behind it, which isn't necessarily true with indie movies, just by the nature of it being an independent film. — Jamie Linden

I love the energy of an independent film set. No one is there for the money. Everyone is there 'cause they really want to be there. It makes all the difference in the world. It's without ego and agenda, other than just wanting to fulfill a creative dream. — Mamie Gummer

I had not starred in an independent film and it's about a woman who owned a hair salon. — Jenifer Lewis

When you're making an independent film what you don't have in time and money you have to make up with creativity and diligence. — Matthew Lillard

You make a film for a million dollars and then it costs $10 million to sell it. That's the problem at the moment with independent filmmaking: You can make it cheap and then there's no money to market it. — Vilmos Zsigmond

I did a film called The Jesuit, which was an independent film. I did that shortly after Mistresses. I was still feeling soft and I was nursing, but it was a character I'd never played before. That was a Paul Schrader script, with an up-and-coming Mexican director, named Alfonso Ulloa. That has Tim Roth and Paz Vega in it, and I enjoyed that, as well. — Shannyn Sossamon

There was a golden era in film-making in Hollywood back in the 1970s, and although there is some great independent film-making in America, it's actually very hard to get independent films made in the United States. It's much more feasible from Europe. — Lenny Abrahamson

Independent film is such a huge deal in the UK. There aren't many big budget studio movies that get greenlit at all. The indie film industy is a great opportunity that I'm trying to seize. — Aml Ameen

I think distribution has become a lot harder. With the whole explosion of digital video, there's just a lot more people making films. Distributors have a lot more choice. I do think there's an audience out there for small films. It's obvious to me what the studios do: they've co-opted independent film. They all have their independent arm. They can afford to crush the competition. — Steve Buscemi

Independent film is taking risks in all areas. It's not just about complicated women. — Anne Heche

I did a film when I was about 30; it's a coming of age story called 'Gas Food Lodging,' and I'm so proud of that little independent film. I play this young English geologist, and he's such a simple, loving kind of guy. Doesn't talk too much. He's just a quiet guy, and he gets the girl. — Robert Knepper

I enjoy doing independent films more, only because there's more freedom. There's not as many cooks tampering with what you are trying to do. — Illeana Douglas

Television is making, there was in independent film renaissance late '80s through the mid-90's. It was an amazing time. Television is doing that right now. So that's why everybody wants to do it. I mean if you're writing stuff like, you know, Fargo, or True Detective, or any of these things that are on, Breaking Bad, there are no rules in television. — Billy Bob Thornton

But I think the thing I'm proud of about the film is that there aren't many films - either independent films or mainstream Hollywood films - that are like this; it's of its own times, and it's the film Mike Nichols wanted to make. — Patrick Marber

Each form of the acting is different. I think it keeps your mind active. TV, film and theater are different disciplines, as are independent films, opposed to studio films. There are differences in the size and the genre, or a period drama as opposed to a contemporary drama, or the types of characters. — Luke Evans

I've always felt that an independent film is a film that almost doesn't get made. — Glenn Close

I came to Los Angeles only after filming 'A Good Day to Die Hard,' when I was cast in the independent movie 'Delirium.' Director Lee Roy Kunz was looking everywhere for a Russian actress. He saw my photos, and only then he learned where I starred before! Eventually, I spent several months in the U.S., and we made the film quickly. — Yuliya Snigir

In independent film you tend to have stories that involve more of a community, and the smaller characters are important to the story. — David Morse

Part of the excitement of doing independent film is the complete unknown of what lies in store for the film's future. — Rachel Miner

I come from Venezuela, from the independent film arena, and you work with one camera. — Edgar Ramirez

The excitement about independent filmmaking is that they're a little more open to taking chances. The studios are a little more careful, as far as who they choose for their film and what they're known for and staying in the genre because they know what works. — Malin Akerman

I do like working on independent films where it is a smaller budget and less pressure. The pace is also quicker than that of a big budget film. You are shooting at a fairly fast pace. Sitting around for three or four days can be quite draining. So I guess in terms of film or television, I would say filming an independent feature. — Colm Meaney

I was still making movies so it wasnt as if I were working in a bar, but they were independent films that couldnt find distributors. — Linda Fiorentino

The network shows have this very commercial voice that you have to adhere to, and the cable shows, it's kind of like winning the lottery. The independent film world is a world you can actually get to. You can get the under-a-million-dollar film by finding a good cast and financing. — Jill Soloway

People in independent film have a passion; they're not in it for the money. — Gena Rowlands

Going forward, I would love to work with directors like Rian Johnson and Joss Whedon; people like that who are doing big films but do have really independent voices. That's kind of what I want to focus on, is always working with people with at least an independent point of view, even if it's not an independent film. — Mary Elizabeth Winstead

I'm a bit of a shopaholic. I've been working in the Bollywood film industry since I was 17, and I have always been financially independent, but I think I would be useless looking after my own money. — Shilpa Shetty

I want to have the illegitimate child of independent film making and the budget to make it. That's my aspiration. — Duncan Jones

I've done a lot of independent film, which are short shoots that are usually four to six weeks, max. I enjoy everything. After one particular experience of work, I like to go in the opposite direction and do a short film, or something else. — Adelaide Clemens

As an independent filmmaker, the biggest challenge is finding the money. Whenever you have interest in a film project you need to find investors who are real. I think most independent filmmakers would echo that sentiment. — Harrison Smith

Intimacy between humans need not be relegated to independent film. Real characters can exist no matter what the scale of a movie is. — Colin Trevorrow

It's just hard to get an independent film made. — Luke Evans

The fact that you couldn't see Alfred Hitchcock's first film The Mountain Eagle, or that you couldn't see so many of F.W. Murnau's masterpieces, or that you couldn't see so many of Oscar Micheaux's really intriguing race melodramas, made with fierce independent spirit against all odds in '20s and '30s America. That stuff haunted me. They really did bring to life a sense of 20th Century history: cultural history, pop history, gender politics and race politics, socio economic history, all that stuff. It was bracing and instructive. — Guy Maddin

Independent film is not only an oxymoron; it doesn't exist anymore. — Martha Plimpton

I knew nothing about the independent film industry. I didn't know much about the industry itself. All I knew was how to watch movies, how to enjoy them, how to hate them, how not to like them. — Michelle Rodriguez

I love independent film making. So much real love and passion go into them and you can feel it while you watch. As for my career, I don't want to be famous. I just want to be a part of as many beautiful, crazy, unique films as possible. — Alicia Sixtos

I don't think I could ever have a desk job, so I get to be mobile. I'm on set. I get to walk around kind of doing my own thing, being independent - it's just a really good vibe. Everyone on a film set is very happy, and they all love their jobs, so it's a cool environment to be a part of. — Jean-Luc Bilodeau

I didn't fill it up with movies every time because I was trying to just film one damn movie, but that's the heartache of independent films. — Shane West

The truth for me is that I've been doing independent film since the get-go, so that's a big passion of mine, but the big ones are really fun, too. I like my world to be eclectic. — Lynn Collins

My heart is in independent film-making. For me, it's where the fun, gritty storytelling is being told. — Aaron Paul

Be your own independent film channel. — Art Hochberg

I did a film which was considered an independent movie with Dustin Hoffman and Andy Garcia called Confidence, and that's the type of film I was willing to take a chance on that because of the caliber of people involved with the film. — Morris Chestnut

Flags are bits of colored cloth that governments use first to shrink-wrap people's brains and then as ceremonial shrouds to bury the dead. When independent-thinking people (and here I do not include the corporate media) begin to rally under flags, when writers, painters, musicians, film makers suspend their judgment and blindly yoke their art to the service of the "Nation," it's time for all of us to sit up and worry. — Arundhati Roy

When a film like Chris Nolan's Memento cannot get picked up, to me independent film is over. It's dead. — Steven Soderbergh

I want to do more independent film. I'm blessed to be working on really quality episodic television, which to me actually feels like a sort of 13-hour film. — Maggie Siff

The biggest problem with the independent film sector in Toronto is that they find themselves having to make that budget show on screen. — Atom Egoyan

I like the intimacy of independent films and I like the idea that people aren't being paid necessarily as much money as some one on a studio film. — Kim Shaw

The movie industry has collapsed into two types of film - the $100 million blockbuster or the small independent film of $1 million or less - and the huge middle ground has been lost. Cable is filling that void. — Jonathan LaPaglia

My first movie was this independent that I did on the Erie Canal in 1995, called Erie, that I don't know if you could even get, actually with Felicity Huffman. And then from that I did this film that was eventually called The Broken Giant later that fall. And then I kind of started getting into doing pilots. — Will Arnett

The Average Occidental- be he a democrat or a Fascist, a Capitalist or a Bolshevik, a manual worker or an intellectual- knows only one positive "religion", and that is the worship of material progress, the belief that there is no other goal in life than to make that very life continually easier or, as the current expression goes, "independent of nature". The temples of this "religion" are the gigantic factories, cinemas, chemical laboratories, dancing halls, hydro- electric works; and its priests are bankers, engineers,film stars, captains of industry, record-airmen. The unavoidable result of this craving after power and pleasure is the creation of hostile groups armed to the teeth and determined to destroy each other whenever their respective interests come to clash. And on the cultural side the result is the creation of a human type whose morality is confined to the question of practical utility alone, and whose highest criterion of good and evil is material progress. — Muhammad Asad

It's becoming increasingly harder and harder; there's no such thing as independent film anymore. There aren't any, they don't exist. In the old days you could go and get a certain amount of the budget with foreign sales, now everybody wants a marketable angle. — Gary Oldman

The independent films are really where I kind of come from and where I feel comfortable. — Mia Wasikowska

I'd like to do an independent film. — David Boreanaz

I went to the top of the mountain in television and could do anything I wanted, but I wanted to do an independent film, which results in you paying your own way, fighting like hell to get distribution, and maybe 30 people will see it. That was a good idea. — Joel Surnow

Making an independent documentary film is so hard that usually, the usual model is that your film becomes a model for advocacy, so you can enlist that support group and get as much juice out of your film as possible. That's just practically, financially, what you need to do. — Tim Hetherington

There was an interesting article in Los Angeles Magazine about women directors. A woman director makes one bad independent film and her career is over. Guys tend to get an opportunity to learn from their mistakes. — Dick Wolf

For the most part, the American film market has become very corporatised, even independent film to a degree, and because of the corporate management mentality, they want to take the safe way. — Anthony LaPaglia

The lifeblood of my career has been independent film. — James Woods

I might do my own independent film, that my husband wrote for me, if all the ducks are in a row. — Erica Durance

In terms of doing another franchise after 'Transformers,' I don't know if that would be best for me. I'm really happy to inhabit the world of independent film. — Jack Reynor

Independent film is almost nonexistent right now, because all the distributers that used to love to put out these little art films are all out of business right now, because it costs so much to open a movie. — Ron Perlman

I started doing independent films. My first one was 'Miss Bala,' which was very well-received at film festivals. — Stephanie Sigman

Just being able to make exactly what I want with my brother and a lot of my best friend and to have a place like HBO that not only lets you do that, but supports you and puts up billboards in support of it, and really puts it out there for you. That's not something I get a lot in the independent film world where everybody's pinching pennies and nervous about whether it's going to make money or not. — Mark Duplass

It'll be the Internet and piracy that will kill film. There's a philosophy that the Internet should be free, but the reality is that piracy will destroy the film industry and film as an art form because it's expensive to make a movie. Maybe you'll have funky little independent movies, and it'll go back and then start up again some other way. — Helen Mirren