When I'm playing as an actor, I don't want to interfere at all with the director. I'm just an actor. I'm totally respectful.
Theatre is really difficult, so it's important that you have a director that kind of understands that and is really hands on.
When you are doing stand-up comedy, you are the writer, producer, director, sometimes bouncer.
Yet as a director, I don't feel you have to identify with your characters as a requirement to make a movie.
I didn't make 'Wild Bill' because I wanted to become a director; I just wanted to make 'Wild Bill.'
Film is a dramatised reality and it is the director's job to make it appear real... an audience should not be conscious of technique.
I wish that every director was as interested in doing as much in camera and with physical objects as much as possible as J.J. Abrams is.
I'd love it if doors open for me in America. There are directors I'd love to work with there. I'll always do theater, but I've got to pay the mortgage.
The director is a Canadian, Jeff Stephenson, and any time I get a script that has any Canadian component, I'm always immediately much more interested.
First time films are hard. Even with some of the greatest directors, you look back at their first film, and you are just going, 'That movie is kind of bad.'
To me it's like, every time I'm a director, like today, you're the captain of the ship, so you better dress like it. You're the host of the party.
From time to time, there are people in the film industry who appear on the horizon with a unique vision. South African director Neill Blomkamp is one of those rare people.
The directors you trust the most are the ones, when you ask them a question, they've got the guts to say, 'I don't know.'
I found it to be more challenging to be in a huge effects movie, because a lot of the things aren't there. You have to trust the director and react to nothing.
I admire directors so much, I find them incredible: they manage such a huge number of people of different characters, think of the money involved.
I've discovered just how symbiotic the relationship is between writers, directors and actors. They ask the same questions and strip down texts in exactly the same way.
Film's hard when you don't have any relationship with the director at all and you just show up. Then you really are just a gun for hire.
I've always had the utmost respect and awe of what the lens can do and what a director can do with just a camera move.
There are a lot of directors out there who are very specific, visual craftsmen, and while I have the utmost respect for that, they don't really communicate with the actors.
Besides entertainment and action, I want to educate. You know, as a producer or director, we do have a responsibility to society.
I love being on set, because I've basically grown up on a set. And now I love to contribute as a director and help steer the ship, if you will.
