Director Quotes

I'm a director's actor; I'm a storyteller's actor.

I write music to please myself. Hopefully the director's enjoying it too.

I was the executive editor on a little magazine called Greek Accent, whose only claim to fame is that its art director went on to be the art director of Discover for many years.

Casting sometimes is fate and destiny more than skill and talent, from a director's point of view.

What goes on between a father and a son, which is usually such a private matter, is that they are able to be honest with each other, and be honest with me, as a director. It's just remarkable.

My very first news director said to me that it's better to be hated than to have viewers be neutral.

So whatever I might have started to learn at that age was all undone by the next director and next crew in the next cheap picture, because I was allowed to get away with murder.

I think the most insulting thing you can do to a director is to challenge when he or she is satisfied with your interpretation.

For example I don't work with William Hurt the same way that I will work with Viggo. They're different guys and they work in different ways. So a good sensitive director has his general style and technique and personality that he uses but you don't impose that on the actors.

Carefully execute every instruction given to you by the director, producer, and studio. But that would be a life not worth living.

I think one of the major things a director has to do is to know his subject matter, the subject matter of his script, know the truth and the reality of it. That's very important.

He was such a fabulous drama coach. What better person to have than Alfred Hitchcock? His work as a director was impeccable. I learned so much.

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.

Film is the manipulative medium par excellence. When you think back on the history of film and the 20th century, you see the propaganda that's been made. So there are moral demands on the director to treat the spectators as seriously as he or she takes himself and not to see them merely as victims that can be manipulated to whatever ends they have.

You have a right to your opinion about the work that you're doing. An artist is as equally important as the director. If you believe that, you can work in any circumstances.

How people are around a director, it really does affect everything, every detail of the life of the movie.

I got my dailies every day, although I couldn't always look at them because I was usually preparing for the next day's shoot, both as an actress and as the director.

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.

For a director and a producer to be named on the writing credits is practically unheard of.

Burt Lancaster was largely responsible for me becoming a director.

What happens is things come to you - director, script - and if you respond to it, it's because it's tapping into some part of what's inside you, and different roles tap into different parts.

But things such as 'Harry Potter', all I can do is shape my character, seek the director's approval on that, and basically take it from there. Professor Flitwick in 'Harry Potter', I kind of defined how I saw him from reading the book, and luckily that matched up with the director's vision.

I don't come in with any preconceived ideas, and although I will have done some preparation, I can go which way the director wants.

As a director, you try to find what is creative.

A director in Hollywood in my time couldn't do what he wanted to do.

It became very clear to the director that it would be foolish not to use our friendship. I had tried to talk to him about it because all the relationships in the film are so, not negative, but antagonistic. There's not a lot of love going around.

For any director with a little lucidity, masterpieces are films that come to you by accident.

Any time you talk about the look of the film, it's not just the director and the director of photography. You have to include the costume designer and the production designer.

I mean, this whole digital revolution is really eroding the director's importance on a movie because, number one, just from a practical standpoint, with floppy disks and the ability to put all of the film onto a disk, more people have access to the movie.

The first work of the director is to set a mood so that the actor's work can take place, so that the actor can create. And in order to do that, you have to communicate, communicate with the actors. And direction is about communication on all levels.