You can be playing a line some way and the director wants you to change that, or you can disagree. But I always think that the creative conversation between director and actor is what leads to good work.
I would love to get great performances from actors as a director, because that's what I'm always looking for, a director that's going to help me go places I've never been before.
Realistically, it's the great truism that screenwriters are fungible, that at the end of the day a studio is not going to want to fire a movie star. And they're really not going to want to fire a star director because the director has the hand on the...
I think today there are too many directors taking themselves seriously; the only one capable of saying anything really new and interesting is Luis Bunuel. He's a very great director.
Obviously I'd love to work with any of these great directors because every time I've worked with them I've gained a tremendous amount as an actor. Each director has his own way of pushing you towards improving yourself.
I think that for the actors, the last thing that they want is a director that's not watching, a director that goes 'Okay, it sounded good to me,' and they were doing something else or preoccupied with something else because they were worried about th...
I guess once you've been acting for a long time, you glean the great bits of good directors and the bad bits from other directors, and you know the way that you would like to be directed.
If you have a script that's not great, if you have a great director, you can make a great movie, but if you have a great script with a director who's not good, never are you going to have a good movie.
I think what makes a good actor's director is the same thing that makes a good director. Acting is just one of the trades necessary to make a movie.
I've been very, very lucky in my career, in my life - from day one. When aspiring directors say, 'What's your advice?' first I say, 'Be born the son of a famous director. It's invaluable.'
My musical director, Mark Cherry, is the most wonderful person who ever lived on God's good green Earth. He's my director, he does the arrangements. Really, he does everything - including certain janitorial chores!
The 9/11 Commission strongly recommends that the National Intelligence Director be fully in control of the budget, from developing it to implementing it, to ensuring that the National Intelligence Director has the clout to make decisions.
I think I happened to work with sort of a bunch of slightly difficult male directors when I was a kid. I've since worked with lots of male directors that I love, so I no longer see the distinction gender-wise.
Every director's so different. Everybody has their own modus operandi and I love getting to know different directors in the way they work. David O. Russell is very exciting to be with because he's got a mind like quicksilver.
Every single director stops at the moment he thinks he has the shot. Sometimes, directors shoot an establishing shot where everything is in the shot. He's going to use this at the beginning and the end.
I never went to school for directing. I studied theater with a director. I followed plays to see how a director would talk to the actors. I tried to make my own school.
In Hollywood there's no real material. They would send me stuff, but I hadn't even seen the director. If I don't see the director's eyes, I'm not going. I'm not even going to pack my bags.
Somehow I got to be one of five or six actors that the directors would use as guinea pigs at this directing colloquium, where people pay to listen to and watch the directors direct.
I don't believe in director's cuts where you make things longer. The coolest thing was when the Coen brothers did a director's cut of 'Blood Simple,' and they made it shorter.
Sometimes the producer has more say and the director takes what he is given. On other occasions, you don't see the producer very much and the director is the one who it is all about.
You have to get the casting right. You have to get the people behind it. Your director might not be the right director for the project. And then, it has to test and those people in that room, wherever they are, have to turn those buttons the right wa...
