Norma Desmond: [Norma thinks Joe is a funeral director] I'd like the coffin to be white, and I want it specially lined with satin. White... or pink. Maybe red! Bright flaming red! Let's make it gay!
Truman: [after scaring the two control room directors by seemingly talking to them, then easing them by seeming to revert back to his eccentricity, while they look at their notes temporarily] That one's for free.
Increasingly, there's much better material on television, but there's not always the time and money to make it, so you've got to make sure you make it in the right place. It also depends on time commitment; a lot of directors will make a pilot, but a...
My wife, Jill, and I have an incredibly close working relationship, and an incredibly happy married one. We met through work. I was the world's worst advertising copywriter. She had the misfortune to be my account director, so from the very start she...
I was raised in New York City and raised in the New York City theater world. My father was a theater director and an acting teacher, and it was not uncommon for me to have long discussions about the method and what the various different processes wer...
I love the pictures of Old Hollywood, seeing the directors dressed in suits and ties. Even the grips would be wearing ties. But the biggest thing is when I was a kid, I couldn't wait to be an adult, and I think what happens with most guys is that no ...
I love test screenings. Some directors don't, I know. But I love it. I think it's because I come from the theatre and in the theatre, previews are where you really have to listen to the audience and really feel how they're responding. I found our tes...
Honestly, as hard a profession as acting is, I think music is even harder. Acting, you're like a leech, because someone else does the hard part for you. They write it for you, then the director tells you what to do. You really just need to know how t...
I got into acting as a young child on account of a sort of arbitrary thing. A friend of my mom's was a casting director, so really, as kind of a lark, I had a couple of acting jobs that had just enough exposure to give me the option to continue if I ...
I think 'North by Northwest' and 'Rope' and Rear Window' and 'Psycho' are on my list of favorite all time movies. I just think his kind of command as a director was almost unparalleled, and I feel like in certain ways the sort of character-based thri...
I don't watch the movies I make, so I haven't seen 'Footloose' since it came out. You see this young, hungry actor, it's pretty fun. I was the only one they screen tested. It was an attempt by the director and producer to talk the head of the studio ...
Unless you have a real passion for making movies, then don't bother. I had to carry energy and light into every meeting, only to be told, 'We don't want you.' I couldn't take it personally. You just have to wait, and live for those moments when the c...
'Black Swan' does what Hollywood movies have always done - it spends its energies on getting some surface things right while getting everything important wrong. Darren Aronofsky, the director, applies the same techniques and the same sensibility here...
NASA Director: This could be the worst disaster NASA's ever faced. Gene Kranz: With all due respect, sir, I believe this is gonna be our finest hour.
Wolfgang Amadeus Mozart: It's unbelievable, the director has actually torn up a huge section of my music. They say I have to rewrite the opera. But it's perfect as it is! I can't rewrite what's perfect!
Jack O'Donnell: I am not going to leave him at the airport with six people and his dick in his hand. Tell the Director to call the White House. Do your fucking job!
Tony Mendez: [proposing the Argo idea to the DCI] There are only bad options. It's about finding the best one. C.I.A Director Stansfield Turner: You don't have a better bad idea than this?
I like so many different directors: Scorsese, Coppola, Cassavetes, Jarmusch, Gus van Sant, Woody Allen and the greats like Fellini, Bergman, Tarkovsky and among current filmmakers von Trier, Ang Lee, Wong Kar-wai.
When you're directing an ongoing series, the tone has already been set. So a director will come in and fulfill that tone - reinforce the characters and their behavior. The challenge is to find unique ways that you can visually tell the story while ke...
Every now and then I have to teach directing. The thing about the theatre is that the most important thing you can do as a director is to make sure that everybody is in the same world - you have to create the world and make sure everyone buys into it...
One day, we were doing a serious scene and fast talking like we do and we could not stop laughing and the director had to stop the production. We had to go to our trailer and calm down and do it all again.
