I produce the way I would love to be produced: In ways to create the best conditions to make your movie, but also to create a space in which the director calls the shots.
If I have freedom to experiment with a scene, then I try my best to do that. With TV and with the variety of directors you have on a season, you rarely get that opportunity. It's more structured.
On set I keep myself to myself; I'd rather the director speak up. I'm not gonna direct a younger actor. I think the power of example works best, actually.
There's no way a director can communicate with every single person on the set and yet they need to motivate and instill an ambition to want to do their best work.
I've been lucky enough to work with some of the best TV directors there are, and I've learned from how they had to handle when things don't go quite according to plan.
It's a writer's or director's role to be cerebral, whereas for an actor it should be a visceral, gut thing. When the action starts, it's best to turn the brain off and let it become an instinctual thing.
My Mom is a ballet director, so I had this idea in me that classical training is the best foundation for anything you do, so I wanted to get a classical background and voice.
My very first news director said to me that it's better to be hated than to have viewers be neutral.
Once there are more African Americans and Asian Americans behind the scenes as producers, writers, and directors, I think more inclusive casting will happen.
A lot of directors straight out of film school are very technically minded, but they don't have an understanding of actors or how to talk to them.
I'm a writer and director, and the movie I've seen a million times is 'Stardust Memories' by Woody Allen, starring Woody Allen and Charlotte Rampling.
I enjoy directing more when I don't have to direct myself. I like when I can just be the director.
As a director you have to be careful you don't over-design the film. You have to be careful that the period aspect does not take over.
As a director, I also get to sit and watch actors and learn from them in a way that I don't get to do when I'm just acting.
Because of 'The Birds' and 'Marnie' I was, as the expression goes, hot in Hollywood and producers and directors wanted to hire me.
I think directors can become overly infatuated by gilt and gold, and the word 'lavish' and everything being magnificent.
I've worked on shows where the lead actor doesn't know their lines, doesn't care, and it affects everybody - the crew, the director, the other actors. It's definitely a responsibility.
I think I have been stereotyped as an action director in Hollywood, so all I got were the action scripts.
It's very rare that you get a director that lets you be creative and bring what you feel your character should do or should be.
Of all the projects I've worked on, I've never worked with another director like Billy Friedkin. I think he's a genius.
Everyone who made 'Save the Date,' like the writers and the director, they're all happily married and not anti-marriage at all, so that was kind of interesting to me.
