Writer And Director Quotes & Sayings

The thing is, I think as a director or a writer or whatever, you have to have a vision. And you have to be maybe sometimes too early, somewhere. — Uwe Boll

If a movie doesn't even have financing yet, they'll do a table read for it at a casting director's office with actors, for the producer and the writer, just to hear if the movie is working. — Bill Hader

[Make a sitcom] was really the idea of Executive Producer Joe Roth who owned the property over at Revolution Studios and said he was thinking about taking it to TV. And after he said that he already had [writer/director] Ali Leroi on board, and that he was going after Terry Crews, to me it was a no-brainer. I said, "Let's put this together!" — Ice Cube

The truth is, a director wins an Oscar for a writer's script and actors' performances. — George Cukor

Unless you're playing a historical figure, a writer or director can change their minds. And sometimes your job is to make them change their minds - to make them believe that you're the one that can do it. — Timothy Simons

A writer/director is a tough thing to gauge when someone hasn't directed a movie before. You just don't know. Sometimes it will be a great script that's written beautifully, and then the director who has also written it does not have the facility to translate it. — Richard Ayoade

It's always a good collaboration between the actor and the writer and the director to try stuff out, during the process. — Mark Consuelos

It's always different, depending on the writer and the director. A collaborator like Graham Reznick delivers a fully finished piece, perfected in every way. Other writers direct the recording session and then leave quite a bit of the work to us. — Larry Fessenden

I had a 90-minute one-man show. I performed it and my life just exploded. Everything - my life just changed. Every writer, director, producer, studio head, movie star - they all wanted it. It was the hottest property since Rocky. — Chazz Palminteri

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

It is perfectly possible to be a professional director or a professional writer and not to be an artist: merely a sort of executor of other people's ideas. — Andrei Tarkovsky

I had never thought of myself as a director and found out that I was not. I am a writer who was able to direct the films that I write. — Anthony Minghella

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

When somebody who makes movies for a living - either as an actor, writer, producer or director - lives to be a certain age, you have to admire them. It is an act of courage to make a film - a courage for which you are not prepared in the rest of life. It is very hard and very destructive. But we do it because we love it. — John Carpenter

Pretty much, the writer's in charge in theater. Of course you're in charge with the director, but no one can change your words. People can give you notes, but you don't have to take them. In Hollywood you take them and you cash your check and that's your job. It's very different. — David Lindsay-Abaire

As for Tenacious D, of course it could work as a full length movie; all it requires is a great writer and great director with an ability to think outside of conventional film comedy. — David Cross

It's madness to hand in a script to a director, leave them alone, and for the director not to want the writer there with rehearsals and the shoot. — Peter Morgan

I have immense admiration for the writer/directors and director/actors who just seamlessly do both jobs at the same time. — Jim Piddock

It's a writer's or director's role to be cerebral, whereas for an actor it should be a visceral, gut thing. When the action starts, it's best to turn the brain off and let it become an instinctual thing. — Natalie Dormer

I had to battle it out with all the usual suspects and whatnot and go to the callback. I was lucky that (writer-director) John (Levine) and I were sort of these two white-boy hip-hop-heads from New York. I think that alone got me in the door. — Josh Peck

There's an inherent idea that if a Black executive producer and a Black director are going to do a movie based on a Black writer's book that everybody is going to be Black. — Gabrielle Union

There's this sense of being strange, which is at the heart of every creative person. Every writer, every actor, every director knows who Ripley is. We've made careers and lives out of pretending, making things up, inhabiting other people's stories and lives. That's what I do every day ... The story is so audacious and subversive: a central character who behaves badly and isn't apparently caught. That intrigued me no end. — Anthony Minghella

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

Richard Curtis, the writer and director of Love Actually, is brilliant at many things, but his genius, I submit, is for thrusting characters into situations in which they feel driven to humiliate themselves. Which is why we love them, especially when it's all in the name of love. He is the Bard of Embarrassment. — David Edelstein

They say that theater is the actor's medium, television is the writer's medium and film is the director's medium, and it's really true. — Charlie Hunnam

Most of the books that I've adapted I'm doing because I love the book and I feel like it's a great work of art in itself, and when it's a great book I feel as a director or a writer that I have a responsibility to rise to the level of the original. It makes me try to reach higher. — James Franco

Music is where I have the most creative freedom, but I love producing. To me, that's kind of where all the action is. You get a chance to have your hands in every aspect of a film. From picking a director, sometimes picking a writer, to the actors, the wardrobe, set design, editing, music, and marketing. — Ice Cube

I've always been a huge fan of Patricia's [Rozema ], as a director and as a writer, and she's a friend. For me, Patricia is one of those people who can cross genre in a way that I think has been pretty incredible, if you look at her career and the versatility of her work. — Ellen Page

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

You go to New York or L.A., and every waiter wants to be a writer, director or actor. But there's a common thread: everybody wants to do it because they love it. — Gillian Alexy

And I think one way or another it's evident to those who work with me that as a writer, a director, a friend, as somebody's there that's very anxious to get the movie made. — Robert Towne

The writer's job is to write the screenplay and keep the reader turning pages, not to determine how a scene or sequence should be filmed. You don't have to tell the director and cinematographer and film editor how to do their jobs. Your job is to write the screenplay, to give them enough visual information so they can bring those words on the page into life, in full 'sound and fury,' revealing strong visual and dramatic action, with clarity, insight, and emotion. — Syd Field

Hen Baillie [Walsh, writer and director] wrote the movie for me I wasn't doing what I'm doing today, so when we actually came to make the movie it seemed silly to change it. But who knows? That's the way things go. What was interesting for me - and what was always interesting in the script - was that you've got someone who appears to have everything, or at least has the opportunity to have everything, and he's f**ked it up, or lost it. — Daniel Craig

As an actor, I know immediately if I'm saying a word that doesn't feel right coming out of my mouth, and I know how to change it. But as a director watching something, or even as a writer reading a script, sometimes it's not always clear what needs to be fixed. — Scott Foley

I've come to the possible conclusion that being a comedic writer/director is like running track. You do it for a certain amount of time and then you have to stop. Or you at least have to accept that you're not going to be at the top of your game. And that's OK. — David Wain

The whole thing with comedy is that you are always in control. Writer, director, actor, producer, and sometimes bouncer. And you are just a piece of their puzzle. — Dane Cook

I wanted to do - there was this film called 'Magic' that Anthony Hopkins did. And the director wanted me. The writer wanted me. Joe Levine said no, I don't want any comedians in this. — Gene Wilder

I wanted to be a director and producer and writer, but in the early '40's the union wouldn't let you get through the gates. You couldn't get on a crew, or even learn to direct. — Larry Buchanan

I detest producing. I mean, I feel like I do it to enable myself to do all the other stuff that I do love, but I find it's in conflict with the other roles because the producer needs to be the one who says "No" and the director and the writer need to let their mind be free. — Julie Davis

I don't think film is the writer's medium, and so I was interested to see what a director would do with it. — Daniel Handler

Every time I make an American film I just trust the American director and American writer. Myself, I would never make this kind of film. For me, those kinds of films are ridiculous. They don't make sense. — Jackie Chan

If my penis were a writer/director, it would be Woody Allen - small, neurotic, and, frankly, hit or miss. — Matthew Norman

I've learned over the years that the best way to develop as an artist is to make things. So I tell young artists it's not enough to be an actor anymore, you have to be a filmmaker/writer/director. There's no excuse for waiting around for a job. You have to be active and make things. — Liane Balaban

The acting is something that will always be a part of my life, but the writing gives me a lot more creative freedom. You're a pawn in somebody else's chess game, whereas as a writer and as a director, you get to call the shots. And that's very thrilling. — Amber Benson

I'm fairly competant as a director and actor, but I am Mr. Neurotic as a writer. I just don't have enough confidence in my abilities to take criticism well. I take it personally. Start with 'It's a masterpiece,' and then tell me what you think could be changed. — Tim Robbins

David Mamet we all know is a great screenplay writer and playwright and a great director. If you like him, you like him. If you hate him, you really hate him. He's someone who's into controversy, you know what I mean? That's David Mamet. — Tom Hardy

I want to try and be instinctive as a writer and director. — Andrea Arnold

I don't worry about what everyone wants to see. I make movies that please a writer, director and myself. I always think there are enough people smart as me and sensitive as me. — Saul Zaentz

Really, I am entirely material driven. If a project appeals to me, I will try to find the right writer and director. And that may be someone I've worked with before, or it may not. It may be a woman, or it may not. — Alison Owen

'Carrie' was a pretty big-budget movie at a real studio, with a director that had already done a bunch of things and had some notoriety, and Stephen King was the writer. — P. J. Soles

I think of myself as a problem-solver. I want to go in and help the director and the writer to get the best they can out of the text they're working with. — Michael Emerson

You have to understand that people feel threatened by a writer. It's very curious. He knows something they don't know. He knows how to write, and that's a subtle, disturbing quality he has. Some directors without even knowing it, resent the writer in the same way Bob Hope might resent the fact he ain't funny without twelve guys writing the jokes. The director knows the script he is carrying around on the set every day was written by someone, and that's just not something that all directors easily digest. — Ernest Lehman

Listen, there are some movies that are set in stone and the writer or the director does not want to change, but I've never worked on a movie, including my own, that didn't take advantage of a rehearsal process. — Albert Brooks

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

Milos Forman is a great director, Jim Brooks is a wonderful writer and director. — Twyla Tharp

At Newsweek only girls with college degrees
and we were called "girls" then
were hired to sort and deliver the mail, humbly pushing our carts from door to door in our ladylike frocks and proper high-heeled shoes. If we could manage that, we graduated to "clippers," another female ghetto. Dressed in drab khaki smocks so that ink wouldn't smudge our clothes, we sat at the clip desk, marked up newspapers, tore out releveant articles with razor-edged "rip sticks," and routed the clips to the appropriate departments. "Being a clipper was a horrible job," said writer and director Nora Ephron, who got a job at Newsweek after she graduated from Wellesley in 1962, "and to make matters worse, I was good at it. — Lynn Povich

The first thing I say when people ask what's the difference [between doing TV and film], is that film has an ending and TV doesn't. When I write a film, all I think about is where the thing ends and how to get the audience there. And in television, it can't end. You need the audience to return the next week. It kind of shifts the drive of the story. But I find that more as a writer than as a director. — Jason Reitman

I enjoy the acting, but I didn't plan on that. It fell into my lap, and I'm having a lot of fun with it, but I'm definitely moving towards directing because I'm naturally a writer, and I think a good director edits, writes, and has acted a little bit. He's done a little bit of everything, and that's what I'm trying to do. — David Labrava

I mean, I'm a writer, actor, AND director. Not to rock the boat or anything, but compare that to a carpenter and, in the end, who is the better man? — Zach Braff

I did a play in New York at the public theater, a Shakespeare play, and M. Night Shyamalan, who is the writer/director of 'The Village,' came and saw me in the play and asked to go to lunch afterwards. — Bryce Dallas Howard

My first motion capture game was with Sony - 'NBA: The Life.' It was very ahead of its time. Brandon Akiaten, he was the writer and director. He had a real vision of what this game was meant to be; it was a basketball game where I was the Jerry Maguire sports agent type guy. And it was great! — Nolan North

I guess I'm just the kind of person who likes to do it all. It's fun to put on the writer's hat and go hide by myself with my computer for six months. Then it's fun to come out and put the director hat on and deal with all the things that a director deals with. Then it's fun to just be the producer and, um, not do anything. — Drew Goddard

I pay tribute to the writing always. The writer is a creative artist and the director is an interpretive artist and the actors are interpretive. You take zero and make it into something, that's always amazing to me. — Clint Eastwood

I think one of the reasons movies are the quintessential modern art form is that it is partially a business. The director needs a crew - the writer, the producer, etcetera - and to have that, he needs money. — Roger Corman

I am a sensitive writer, actor and director. Talking business disgusts me. If you want to talk business, call my disgusting personal manager. — Sylvester Stallone

I love working with actors. I love visual things. I always intended to be a writer who directs and a director who writes. — Charlie Kaufman

You have to be very flexible and understand as a director, especially as a writer/director, that you cannot hang onto stuff really hard. You have to be ready to accept those happy accidents and to anticipate that they are going to happen and capitalize on them. — David M. Evans

Being on set is difficult for the writer. Your job is done, and you have to step back and hand it over to the director. — John Niven

As a writer, you have to be willing to kill your darlings, and I'm a writer first. As a director, I've got no problem cutting the scenes. — David Ayer

I think TV is much more the writer's medium and film is about the director and their vision and how you can collaborate with them and see that through to the end. They are so different. — Patrick Dempsey

I wanted to work on a cable show and with a writer/director because that's a much more fulfilling and freeing experience, as an actor. — Tom Ellis

I guess if there's one thing that might surprise people about me, it's that I'm very obedient. I'm kind of like a dog. I look at acting as kind of a service industry. You're there to serve the writer and the director. I don't really look at it as an act of self-expression, like I'm going to say what's on my mind. — Michael Shannon

While the storytelling in games is getting so much better, you look at something like Grand Theft Auto V, which I thought was really beautifully written, it doesn't really need a movie because it is a movie. So I think you need a unique game - you either need an incredibly talented writer and director to come in and put together an amazing vision, or you need a game like Metal Gear, which is very cinematic, has a huge amount of history behind it, but whose cinematic experience is very different from what you'd get in a theater. — David Hayter

In theatre, there's the director, the writer, and below them the actor. In film, it's the actors who are most important. That goes against the grain for me. — Anne-Marie Duff

In comics, the writer is also the director in a certain way. So if this were a film, you wouldn't tell the cinematographer to make a good fight scene while you go and get a cup of coffee. — Max Bemis

I always feel that if you put me in a room with a director and a writer and let me talk about the script, I can give a good account of myself. — Daniel Radcliffe

In creating music you are the writer, the director, the producer, you create it from scratch. Obviously in playing a role in a film, you take guidance and put your trust into the director. You come into it and you really trust people. — Justin Timberlake

I was trained to serve the writer and director as an actor before I serve myself. Not to say that's gotten in my way, but that's a different way of working than most American actors work. — Robert Englund

I'm not going to pursue it the way that actors pursue it which means going to all of the auditions and getting a job and all that stuff, because I don't really need to get a job because I have a job as a writer/director. That's how I make my living mostly now. So I don't need to make a living as an actress. — Julie Delpy

I started out as a writer and a director. I started acting because I wanted to know how to relate to the actors. When people ask me what I do, I don't really say that I'm an actor, because actors often wait for someone to give them roles. — Chadwick Boseman

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

I'm a writer/director, my movie is a hit at Sundance, I have a wonderful loving boyfriend, and wow, I have financial stability. Why can't I get out of bed still? It made it even worse, because there's nothing else I want. This is what I'm born to do. I'm living my purpose, I'm paying my rent, what's missing? — Justin Simien

I love telling truthful honest stories. I suppose I'd love the opportunity to be a superhero within a realistic dramatic piece. It would have opportunity for humor too of course. And ideally I would be the writer/director? (Though I suppose if I was, it is POSSIBLE I would give myself a meaty but smaller part so I could focus on the latter of my duties ... Maybe). — E.J. Bonilla

In acting, you have a writer, a director, a character - you're working through being another person - and the irony I always tell people is when I acted early on as a teenager, it actually kept me out of trouble. — Juliette Lewis

With comedy especially, it feels like such a clear-cut thing to be a writer-director. There is so much nuance and tone in a comedy that it's hard to contextualise it in a script. — Todd Phillips

When you're the director and the writer, you never have to remember your lines, and there's no one to call you on it. On Garden State I did different lines on every take, just making crap up. And it was great each time. — Zach Braff

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

The director in TV and the writer and the creator are working very much hand in hand. — Jim Rash

When I do a film, usually I work from my director. That's my boss. The director is interpreting the writer's vision, and we all interpret it, and they create their own vision as well. — Juliette Lewis

I always go back to the original material. I want a good connection as the composer and writer of the score to the director and to the source material. It's really important. — Howard Shore

My film school is making movies. But, I do think that being an actor has served me immensely, as both a writer and director, in terms of knowing what is playable and what will be fun to play, for actors, and also how to communicate to actors on set, and not screw them up and get them in their head. — Josh Radnor

You are a dancer in this great stage we call life. Your imagination is the writer and thoughts are the director of the dance drama. So unleash your thoughts to dramatize your dance. — Debasish Mridha

One of the things about writing a novel is you can do it any way you want. It's your voice that's important and I see absolutely no reason why a screenplay can't be the same. It makes it a hell of a lot easier when you're the writer and the director. — Quentin Tarantino

I'm a performer, comedian, entertainer, writer and director. — William Shatner

I believe that as a writer and a director, you're only providing the skeleton of a character, and you're hiring actors to fill it out. — Christopher McQuarrie

Your life experience is a moving picture, of which you are writer, director, performer, producer and critic. — T.F. Hodge

I think I'm an extremely conscientious producer and now equally as a director and it gives me the opportunity to look at the entire movie and really allow the movie to be the creative vision of the actors, the writer and myself, because I'm in charge of it from a producer and a director point of view. — Tony Krantz

One of the things that takes a bit of getting used to on an American series is having a different director, and often writer, every week. — Gina Bellman

In college, unable to be "special" - or in demand - as a girl, I made myself useful, even essential, in my microcosm - as a writer and photographer for the band, particularly for the band director. My "specialness" was to produce something of value, not to look like something (with that different kind of "value"), so I was still fundamentally invisible, but had a significant purpose. — Cris Mazza

With 'Moreau,' it's been particularly confusing because I started out being the writer of the screenplay and then trying to be the director, then being moved from being the director and having to become the dog extra, it makes some kind of sense to suddenly become a character in the story. — Richard Stanley