Producer Quotes & Sayings

April 10: Marilyn appears on time for six hours of costume tests for Something's Got to Give. She is irritated that Cukor is not there to meet her. She looks radiant, and Peter Levathes tells the press, "This will be the best Monroe picture ever. Marilyn is at the peak of her beauty and ability." But that evening, producer Henry Weinstein finds her sprawled across a bed and unconscious after an overdose of barbiturates. He calls Ralph Greenson, who revives her. It is announced to the press that Marilyn will be part of the entertainment at the president's Madison Square Garden birthday party. Marilyn agrees to pay $1,440.33 for the cost of producing a dress decorated with hand-stitched rhinestones, beading, and mirrors. — Carl Rollyson

I never aspired to be a television producer and a movie director, and I'm shocked that this idea is still going on. — Jeff Tremaine

There's one white powder which is by far the most lethal known, it's called sugar ... The Caribbean back in the 18th century was a soft drug producer: sugar, rum, tobacco, chocolate. And in order to do it, they had to enslave Africans. — Noam Chomsky

We sent a troupe to Edinborough, and then in Edinborough, there was a producer from the Melbourne Comedy Festival, so we went to Melbourne. So it's one of these shows that kind of organically developed and it started developing momentum way before I even thought there was a show here. — Brian Henson

I do have electric guitars, because I've always believed, especially when I'm working in the studio with other bands as producer, that there should be a really nice Strat around. — Nick Mason

Oh, well, in Los Angeles everybody is an actor, or a producer, or a writer, or a director, or an agent, or ... So everybody understands the hours. — Julie Benz

I really want my career to be as an actor-writer-director-producer, you know? I don't know what will be stronger than the other. — Danny Strong

Any man who undertakes to write a play is either a damned fool or a hero, I don't know which. When you write a book, you pull it out of the typewriter and that's that. When you write a play you've got to go on with the producer and the director and the actors and the rehearsals and the ... — Rex Stout

For me, it's about becoming a mogul, owning my own projects, and establishing myself as a funding producer. That's what's big to me. The movies and all that stuff are great, but the fact that I'm in a position to do what I want to do, however I want to do it and when I want to do it is bigger. — Kevin Hart

My entire career is contemporary based, not by choice, but just by character. So, all the movies I've done, except for one in 40 years, are contemporary. But I never did an effects movie. So, I'm also a producer and I was really curious about how this whole thing went together. — Michael Douglas

I would like to work with a great producer who I haven't met yet. I'm not sure who he is, but I'm looking for someone to take me to the next level. — Lita Ford

One of the most glorious messes in the world is the mess created in the living room on Christmas day. Don't clean it up too quickly."
~ (1919-), American writer, producer, humorist. — Andy Rooney

It was immediately apparent that it was full of tricky ingredients to balance. In fact, I found it very intriguing. What held me back from saying yes to the producer was that I wasn't sure who could play Truman. — Peter Weir

I'd rather have it right than right now. — Gale Anne Hurd

Truth be told, I didn't want to be on T.V. I was going to be a writer or producer or a director, and at the end of my sophomore year, my department chairman put me up for a job doing weekend weather in Syracuse, New York. — Al Roker

I love to improvise when it's appropriate and encouraged by a producer. — Rob Paulsen

He [Bogie] had tremendous character and a great sense of honor and would not tolerate lies, even if they asked him what he thought of a movie. We were once at a screening at somebody's house, I forget whose, and they ran a movie that he was in, that he never thought much of. Afterward, the producer asked what he thought of it, and Bogie said "I think it's a crock." And this producer was horrified! He was about to release the movie, and he said to Bogie "Why would you say that?!" Bogie shrugged and said "Then don't ask me." He never played the schmoozing game. He was not into that at all. — Lauren Bacall

Eventually, I want to be a creative producer that isn't in things. The acting is more of a secondary thing for me now. — Jason Gann

You know, what a producer does is one of the great mysteries in life, so anyone can be one. — Timothy Olyphant

I write 1,000 words a day first thing in the morning but I cannot write 240 characters to describe a piece that I spent six weeks working on with a producer. — Daniel Alarcon

I have a team, the same team of filmmakers I worked with on Pi and Requiem. Which is my cameraman, and my composer, and my producer. We've all worked together for a number of films. — Darren Aronofsky

In documentary, which is the only thing I'm really very familiar with, women are very easily relegated into a producer role. — Liz W. Garcia

As a first-time director, you cannot have final cut. But as a producer, you can have final cut. — Guillermo Del Toro

I feel like, if I'm being honest with myself, my biggest skill set is as a writer 'cause I can do that quickly and I'm really grounded in story structure. Part of my success as an actor, is that I know story well. Part of my success as a director, is how well I know story. Same thing, as a producer. It all begins and ends with me as a story creator. But, I love doing it all. — Mark Duplass

There's no lack of talent out there. I suspect there is a lack of creative guidance, and that would not be solely the responsibility of a director but also a producer. — Harold Prince

Every producer I have met has asked me to change my hair. I have always said 'No.' I finally change it for me ... and now everyone in the business is like, 'You have to go back to having brown hair.' — Marissa Jaret Winokur

I realized the exciting place was behind the camera with the producer, director and so on. — Dino De Laurentiis

The best advice I can give people when they buy Burgundy, which is a bit of a roulette game, is to look for producers who are tried and true ... Look for the name of the producer, whether Michel Lafarge, Domaine Leflaivre, Dominique Lafont, or another. When they put their name on the bottle, they're proud. — Daniel Johnnes

We singer-songwriter people, we're used to getting up and doing our own thing in front of people, and we're it. We're the band, artist, writer, producer, front man. We're the whole thing. You develop, it's not smugness, but this self-reliance, that can limit your creativity. When you're willing and able to invite others into it, you wind up getting a piece of work that's bigger and better than anything you ever imagined it could be. — Andy Wilkinson

Whether this is your first Star Wars adventure, or one of many over the years: Thank you. Thank you for your dedication to and passion for the Star Wars galaxy. Because of fans like you around the world, the Force will be with us, always. Dave Filoni Executive Producer and Supervising Director, Star Wars Rebels — John Jackson Miller

Since we launched the original 'Pop Idol' in England, I've remained close with Simon Fuller. Working as executive producer on 'American idol' for its first seven years not only was an inspirational journey into the heart of American pop culture, it opened my eyes to the untapped potential of the incredibly dynamic young people in this world. — Nigel Lythgoe

With my personal work I prefer not to work from storyboards because being a director, producer and animator in one person I don't have to communicate my idea to anyone else, I can keep the feeling of the story, the story arc and structure in my head. — Signe Baumane

For any producer I've ever worked with, their toughest job is to convince me to not to obscure my vocals. A lot of people don't like the sound of their own voice on, like, cassette tape or something. It's like that for me, and other songwriters I know. Like, "Oh God, that's what I sound like?" — Ryan Adams

You have to start at the very bottom and you've got to do every job. I did that so I could understand what everybody does. I didn't become this huge producer overnight. It took many, many years. — Jerry Bruckheimer

I intend to be the greatest golfer in the world, the finest film producer in Hollywood, the greatest pilot in the world, and the richest man in the world. — Howard Hughes

I think I have broken into the mainstream, and I think that may happen in a broader way, but I want to do it on my own terms, not become a standard producer. — Joe R. Lansdale

E-books, which made their debut in the 1990s, cut costs even more for both consumer and producer, though as the Internet expanded, those roles became confused. — Joshua Cohen

I am no expert on tax; I'm a film producer. I read books and think about which ones would make good movies, and then I work with directors in order to make them. — Alison Owen

Innovation comes from the producer - not from the customer. — W. Edwards Deming

When you do a first movie, you're contractually supposed to do the second one and then you don't do it, you become an executive producer. That's why there are a ton of directors who have executive producer credits on other movies. — Louis Leterrier

So I became a producer because I knew one of the reasons was they didn't do them the way I thought was right. — Lee Hazlewood

The artist is seen like a producer of commodities, like a factory that turns our refrigerators. — Sol LeWitt

I describe myself as someone who was always putting on a show, even when I was a little girl. I wanted to be an actress but I liked organizing everybody and putting on plays. I was a producer. — Laura Ziskin

It's such a normal thing for a dance producer to make music and try it out in the club, but that was relatively new to me. I wanted to make a good album that felt like it had a point. — Kieran Hebden

Los Angeles people are incapable of passively mainlining TV and movies. Here you have to read who produced or directed every episode, who wrote it, who had guests shots and whether you know them personally and if they like you. You have to figure out who everybody's agent is and whether yours is better. You not only know but deeply care about the difference between such job titles as Producer, Supervising Producer, and Executive Story Editor ... So while the rest of the country is lying stupid in a media-induced coma, people in L.A. are in constant withdrawal. — Cynthia Heimel

By the time my first solo record came out, I was making a handsome living as a record producer. I had worked with the Band, Janis Joplin and all of these other artists in the Albert Grossman organization. So as my so-called solo career evolved, I never felt pressure that I had to come back and top when I might've done before. — Todd Rundgren

I was in Los Angeles making 'Dead Again' and the producer, Lindsay Doran , asked me if I'd be interested in adapting this book, .. Austen is my favorite author and I thought, 'Well, of course, I'd be very interested, but I don't know how. I don't know where to start, A, writing a screenplay and B, sort of adapting it from a great novel. — Emma Thompson

As rich as you think some of us are, for every $18.99 CD you buy, the artist usually sees a toonie or so. Pay your producer out of that. Then your manager. Then split it five ways among your band mates. Now don't act surprised when you see the drummer of a platinum-selling Canadian rock band behind the drive- thru window at Tim Hortons — Steven Page

I feel it's my job to continue being a student of music if I want to continue being an artist and a producer of other artists. You have to keep filling your mind with other music. You have to be ahead of the curve. — Bruno Mars

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

Nobody taught Picasso how to paint - he learned for himself. And nobody can teach you to be a producer. You can learn the mechanics, but you can't learn what's right about a script or a director or an actor. That comes from instinct and intuition. It comes from inside you. — Dino De Laurentiis

I know that the podcast is typically something I can do forever, because it's mine; it's just me and my producer and business partner, so it's our business. — Marc Maron

I'm developing some screenplays at the moment with my Australian producer. — Rachel Griffiths

Writing a good movie brings a writer about as much fame as steering a bicycle. It gets him, however, more jobs. If his movie is bad it will attract only critical tut-tut for him. The producer, director and stars are the geniuses who get the hosannas when it's a hit. Theirs are also the heads that are mounted on spears when it's a flop. — Ben Hecht

The banker, therefore, is not so much primarily a middleman in the commodity "purchasing power" as a producer of this commodity. However, since all reserve funds and savings today usually flow to him, and the total demand for free purchasing power, whether existing or to be created, concentrates on him, he has either replaced private capitalists or become their agent; he has himself become the capitalist par excellence. — Joseph A. Schumpeter

Yes, I was invited to make the sound environment at a booth of a huge electronic company, during the Hanover Industrial Fair in 1973. It was a job. Slightly good paid. But not as much as my producer then told the press. — Klaus Schulze

I have to admit that I am not great at selecting music for CDs! I have a few personal favorites, and then I let my producer take it from there! — Karen Mason

The producer is at the center of entertainment. The producer is being forgotten, and producers must seize the center of activity. — Marshall Herskovitz

Oh, yes, that never happened to me in my life before. It was a risky film, and I warned the producer. — Alain Resnais

I didn't want to be a sideman. My own style was coming out and I was into my own writing. I wrote a whole album, I arranged it all with pencil and paper. I did eventually do a lot of work with my father, but that was different. I was living at home; I wasn't a starving musician. I wasn't spoiled, but I wasn't going to have some producer come in and tell me what to play. — Shuggie Otis

Now a movie with 30 million returns would be something very incredible and the producer can only get 10 to 15 million. This is only 100 thousands US dollars. This is not enough! — Zhang Yimou

A producer is someone who actually calls the shots. An executive producer is just a guy that eats more food at craft service. — Ryan Reynolds

I think of myself as a producer who tries to bring the best out of everyone, whether that be an artist, songwriter or a publicist. — L.A. Reid

I've been into gear for a long time, but I never saw myself as a producer because I didn't have the patience to finish things in a professional way. — Jamie Woon

Although I have guitars all around and I pick themm up occasionally and write a tune and make a record, I don't really see myself as a musician. It may seem a funny thing to say. It's just like, I write lyrics amd I make up songs, but I'm not a great lyricist or songwriter or producer. It's when you put all these things together - that makes me. — George Harrison

We took a show to the Aspen Comedy Festival, called "Puppet Up" at that point, and in Aspen we just did three shows, and in Aspen, there was a producer from the Edinborough Fringe Festival, who said, "Please come to Edinborough." — Brian Henson

My dad is a successful television producer, director and writer and my mom's a director and writer. — Troian Bellisario

I got out of the music industry many years ago. I had a charlatan for a producer who I wanted nothing to do with. He's dead now, so I guess I can't beat that horse any more. It left a very bad taste in my mouth, so I just went on about my business doing what I do and not involving myself with record companies, except for distribution. — Leon Redbone

Some producer actually told Franny that profanity revealed a poor vocabulary and a lack of imagination. And Frank and Lilly and Father and I all loved to shout at Franny, then, and ask her what she had said to that. 'What an anal crock of shit, you dumb asshole!' she'd told the producer. 'Up yours - and in your ear, too! — John Irving

Julian Fellowes doesn't come to the set, except maybe once every six weeks, for whatever reason. He's not a producer, in that sense. But if you write him a one-line question, he'll write you a three-page answer. — Hugh Bonneville

There's been many times when a producer will say, 'I don't think you want to say that.' We were told we shouldn't be so brutally honest about songwriting or radio or the industry. — Tyler Joseph

I don't think you can mix classical music and reggae. It's not possible. But some producer in, like, Norway is going to put it together. — B.o.B

I have all the tools and gadgets. I tell my son, who's a producer, 'You never work for the machine; the machine works for you.' — Quincy Jones

I didn't ever plan to be a producer, and I didn't really know what I was getting myself into. — Wendi Deng Murdoch

I think my music has always been a mixture, depending on whom I'm working with - what band, what musicians, what producer. — Matisyahu

Jimmy Page is an excellent producer. Led Zeppelin I and II are classics. As a player he's very good in the studio, but I've never seen him play well live. He's sloppy. He plays like he's got a broken hand and he's two years old. If you put out a good album and play like a two year old, what's the purpose? — Eddie Van Halen

One of the things that gives me a lot of pleasure about both the solo show and the book is that it tells people about my dad. He really was an important man. He was a kind of pioneer of regional theater. He was the first American producer to ever produce all of Shakespeare plays. — John Lithgow

Acting became important. It became an art that belonged to the actor, not to the director or producer, or the man whose money had bought the studio. It was an art that transformed you into somebody else, that increased your life and mind. I had always loved acting and tried hard to learn it. But with Michael Chekhov, acting became more than a profession to me. It became a sort of religion. — Marilyn Monroe

I'm inordinately proud of Smash, on so many levels. The complexity of producing that show, every week, is just incredible. As a television producer and as a Broadway producer, which I once was, I am in awe of what we can do on that show, every week. — Robert Greenblatt

The "Highway 61" album [of Bob Dylan] was produced by Bob Johnston if I'm not incorrect. And Bob Johnston was an entirely different producer than Tom Wilson. Tom Wilson had produced jazz records and was a Harvard educated. — Al Kooper

The only guy who was at all helpful as a producer was Sam Spiegel with On the Waterfront. He's one of the few who even knows what he's doing. — Elia Kazan

The only reason to make a million dollars in this business is to tell some fat producer to go to hell. — Humphrey Bogart

Marty Richards is an angel on Earth. A producer that does what he says he'll do. He helped me greatly. — Rip Taylor

Where have you been?"
I stepped into my apartment and met Uncle Bob's glare with one of my own. "Out trying to pass myself off as a movie producer to get hot guys to sleep with me. Where have you been? — Darynda Jones

Let the roar in your heart be the fuel to making dreams a reality". — Pablo De Leon

Each additional idea is a gift to the future. Each additional idea producer is a source of wealth for future generations. — Ramez Naam

Hopefully one day Wars will only be fought in movies. And may the best producer win! — Stanley Victor Paskavich

I saw someone label me as a dubstep producer but I'm definitely not a dubstep producer. There's nothing wrong with that, though, because that's major. But it's like a school bus driver being labeled as a NASCAR driver. I would love to be a NASCAR driver, but I drive buses for a living. — AraabMuzik

The only person who really impressed me with making new music is Cudi. Everyone else seems to be jumping on the same music, the producer-made stuff, but the one person that's made new music to me is Cudi. — Lupe Fiasco

We started with Denny Cordell, and he was a great record producer. He knew exactly how to take a band that knew absolutely nothing, and guide you without trying to tell you what to do. — Benmont Tench

Man is priest, and scholar, and statesman, and producer, and soldier. — Ralph Waldo Emerson

If you look at the whole world now it's just computer games, graphic novels, film, TV spinoffs, spinoffs of spinoffs like Deadpool spinning off of Wolverine. So I think that any kind of smart producer looks at all of those bases. Once it comes down to the integrity of it audiences are very smart, they smell that they're just kind of being played. — Sam Worthington

As the show's executive producer, I envisioned something akin to "Gilligan's Island" meets Lord of the Flies meets Ten Little Indians mets "The Real World." "Survivor" marks a return to a core element of adventure: staying alive. — Mark Burnett

I was a TV producer at a noncommercial station, and we were producing some good documentaries - on Head Start, on poverty. But I was struck by the children, and the damage that poverty was doing to them. I didn't think filming them was helping much, so I wondered how we could use TV for them, to teach them. — Joan Ganz Cooney

I made numerous attempts to find a way to do it all, to be a creative singer, songwriter, producer, and to be the mother, daughter, sister, lover, wife. And the thing about music is, with me, that she's a harsh mistress. She does not come to me in the midst of stress. — Anita Baker

I'm a studio rat. I like going in there as producer. — Al Jourgensen

I like working with other people but I'm not a songwriter, I'm a producer. — Josh Silver

Bathed in light, submerged in sound and rapt in feeling, the sentient body, at once both perceiver and producer, traces the paths of the world's becoming in the very course of contributing to its ongoing renewal. Here, surely, lies the essence of what it means to dwell. It is, literally to be embarked upon a movement along a way of life. The perceiver-producer is thus a wayfarer, and the mode of production is itself a trail blazed or a path followed. Along such paths, lives are lived, skills developed, observations made and understandings grown. But if this is so, then we can no longer suppose that dwelling is emplaced in quite the way Heidegger imagined, in an opening akin to a clearing in the forest. To be, I would now say, is not to be in place but to be along paths. The path, and not the place, is the primary condition of being, or rather of becoming. — Tim Ingold

People have always said that I could have been a highly successful pop artist, if only that were my intention. It never was. My original intention was to be a kind of behind-the-scenes participant in music, to just be a record producer and engineer. And I made a record for myself just so I could have an outlet for my musical ideas. — Todd Rundgren

Freeform radio is an art form. The airwaves are the empty canvas, the producer is the artist, and the sound is the paint. — Julius Lester