Each picture has some sort of rhythm which only the director can give it. He has to be like the captain of a ship.
When I'm a director, I look at myself the actor as a completely different person. It's somebody else up there, an actor playing a role. I keep myself out of it.
I've always said the one advantage an actor has of converting to a director is that he's been in front of the camera. He doesn't have to get in front of the camera again, subliminally or otherwise.
Some directors don't get involved in the cinematography and are just about story, but I'm definitely more tactile than that in terms of my involvement in the minutiae.
I'm proud of the fact that I've taken a lot of big directors, such as Trevor Nunn and Nick Hytner, who were musical virgins, and introduced them to the form.
Some friends of mine who are actors feel directing shuts them down and kills all their impulses, but the worst thing for me is if I feel a director hasn't noticed.
I'm meant to be an animation director. That world, and the culture of stop-motion, is where I want to live. It's more my problem than Hollywood's. I'm not attuned to Hollywood.
I'm not being offered a constant stream of wonderful parts with wonderful directors that would keep me away from the theatre. When they turn up, I do them.
I have been very influenced by the director Maurice Pialat, who I continue to be in conversation and conflict with and get inspiration from.
There are only so many hilarious actors so when they cross-pollinate, people assume it's always the same actors and directors.
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.
I think the grandfather of the set is the director. He needs to have authority, to do what people want. A warm grandfather; he needs to know his job, to be open.
You know as a director what you want, but the film is smarter than you, the film says no, the film says there's something more here.
I'd worked in Clockwork Orange with Stanley Kubrick and since Stanley was such a prestigious director this opened all sorts of doors for me - one of them being Star Wars.
My taste in the films I've taken as an actor is similar to what I'd do a director or writer: all quite odd, challenging stuff, slightly off-the-wall.
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.
When you direct a movie, you're basically looking at a story, the way you want to look at it. You bring that director's vision, and I'm totally open for that.
Usually in features, I'm the lead. I consider the director the captain, but I consider myself the first mate, and it's up to me to keep in contact with the heart of the crew.
I became, and remain, my characters' close and intent watcher: their director, never. Their creator I cannot feel that I was, or am.
Having an investor on your board of directors who is naive about public markets or finds them complex or scary is non-optimal.
I kind of romanticized what it was like to be a writer and director when I was in my early twenties. Working as a production assistant knocked that right out of me.
