Quotes by Sam Mendes

About Sam Mendes:

Samuel Alexander "Sam" Mendes is an English stage and film director. He is best known for directing the comedy-drama film American Beauty (1999), which earned him the Academy Award and Golden Globe Award for Best Director, the crime film Road to Perdition (2002), and the James Bond films Skyfall (2012) and the upcoming Spectre (2015). He also is known for dark re-inventions of the stage musicals Cabaret (1994), Oliver! (1994), Company (1996), and Gypsy (2003). He directed an original stage musical for the first time with Charlie and the Chocolate Factory (2013).
A B C D E F G H I J K L M N O P Q R S T U V W X Y Z

There's good and bad in everybody. I wasn't looking for the good, or looking for the bad. This is a man who signed his pact with the devil 20 years ago, and he's learned to live with it. He's tried to protect his family from it.

Sam Mendes

Now I'm back home, living in London, running my theater. I just want to enjoy all that.

Sam Mendes

I've made movies that cost less than one car chase.

Sam Mendes

Thank God I don't live in Los Angeles. I think if you're there the whole time it just gets out of proportion and you lose touch completely with reality.

Sam Mendes

The perceived wisdom is that people do not go in large numbers to black-and-white movies anymore - which is a great shame, but I'd love to make a black-and-white movie one day.

Sam Mendes

Truly great actors carry their characters in silence with them. They communicate without words the relationships that predate the movie.

Sam Mendes

It's a risk casting anyone against type or what they're known to do. But there's one thing better than having a great actor, which is having a great actor who's never done what you're asking him to do. He's hungry to get out of the trailer every day ...

Sam Mendes

I think movies are a director's medium in the end. Theater is the actor's medium. Theater is fast, and enjoyable, and truly rewarding. I believe in great live performance.

Sam Mendes

There's one thing better than having a great actor, and that's having a great actor who's never done this kind of role before and is hungry to do it. They're testing themselves every day. They want to get out of their trailer and get to work.

Sam Mendes

I don't think good and evil are polarized.

Sam Mendes

You've got to believe as a filmmaker that if a movie's good enough, it's going to survive; and if it's not, well, it won't.

Sam Mendes

It took me a long time to film the plastic bag, and then I had to get the cut of the scene right. But if you find it as beautiful as the character does, then suddenly it becomes a different movie, and so did he as a character.

Sam Mendes

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 just never know when movies are going to take off or not. The lucky thing about this was that it didn't cost a lot of money, and therefore there wasn't loads of pressure on me.

Sam Mendes

One of the reasons I loved working with Tom is people feel they know who he is... I think working with an actor who the audience already has a relationship with actually helps you in a film like this.

Sam Mendes

I want to try and work in different genres with different types of actors, on small movies and big movies.

Sam Mendes

I don't think of it as a competition - which might surprise you, given the way movies are reported constantly.

Sam Mendes

I wanted to keep exploring... I'm not about to choose a series of movies in which I can use the same bag of tricks and style that I used in the first film.

Sam Mendes

The movies that influenced me were movies that told their stories through pictures more than words.

Sam Mendes

You've got to work. You've got to want an audience to sit forward in their chairs sometimes, rather than sit back and be bombarded with images.

Sam Mendes

Kevin and Annette... I wanted them to do it together. They clearly wanted to work with each other.

Sam Mendes

Author Bio

  • NameSam Mendes
  • DescriptionEnglish stage and film director
  • AliasesSamuel Alexander "Sam" Mendes; Samuel Alexander Mendes
  • BornAugust 1, 1965
  • CountryUnited Kingdom
  • ProfessionTheatre Director; Film Director
  • AwardsLaurence Olivier Award; Commander Of The Order Of The British Empire; Academy Award For Best Director; Directors Guild Of America Award