As a director, it's my job to provoke, and when people decided 'The Room' be called a phenomenon, or whatever you call it, it's fine with me.
In a movie, you're raw material, just a hue of some color and the director makes the painting.
I'm not aware that I was consciously influenced by any director, though these things often happen unnoticed, submerged in the unconscious.
I think part of the fun of being an actor is getting to work with different directors and seeing their take on it, what they're passionate about. They all have different ideas about your character.
If I'm going to produce something, it's going to be with somebody I think is special. Once I go beyond a handful of directors, like Scorsese, there are very few I want to work with.
But a lot of that kind of work is done pre-flight, coordinating efforts with the flight directors and the ground teams, and figuring out how you're going to operate together.
In Scotland, we're a colony in more ways than one. So when directors come up to work, there's a very particular way they want Scotland to look like and to behave like.
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.
Writer/directors are, for me, the most inspiring people to work for because they are the person on set that knows the answer to all the questions. They have the most invested in the project because they've been with it from conception.
Not many French producers work the American way. In France, the director decides everything, he has final cut. I'm trying to do things differently, without the Luc Besson solution.
Women's director! Well, I'm very pleased to be considered a master of anything, but remember, for every Jill there was a Jack. People like to pigeonhole you - it's a shortcut, I guess, but once they do, you're stuck with it.
If you think you don't want to play another psychopath, but the script is amazing, and the director is fantastic, and the story is incredible, then you may end up playing your third psychopath in a row.
'Skins' had been a brilliant breeding ground for young actors, young directors and young writers. It was a safe environment to experiment; it tried new things, and it was an amazing time and amazing to be part of it.
I think Paul Weitz is a really amazing director, obviously with tons of acclaim and stuff, but I still think he is underrated. And I think he's amazing to work with, so I was super lucky.
If Martin Scorsese calls, I am available. And then there the ones, well, you can just run down the list - any of those Oscar-nominated films, they have amazing directors across the board.
I'm very manipulative towards directors. My theory is that everyone on the set is directing the film, we're all receiving art messages from the universe on how we should do the film.
That's the greatest sin a director can commit; to make a film simply because he wants to make a film.
Enough of this. Does every conversation with you have to be the director's cut? Get out of the car.
In Hitchcock's eyes the movement was dramatic, not the acting. When he wanted the audience to be moved, he moved the camera. He was a subtle human being, and he was also the best director I have ever worked with.
My dream as a producer is to be able to build a company that can be a safe haven for artists, for directors and for writers and actors to do what they do best and let them have final edit. I'd like to build something to that effect.
My favorite parts of work as an actor and a director are those unplanned mistakes that do happen, because it's like catching lightning in a bottle. It's the best part of what we do.
