Film Set Sayings

#1. But the truth is, at some point, our films - almost every single one of them - are really bad. And it's largely hats off to John Lasseter and Ed Catmull who have set up a system whereby they're expecting it.

Pete Docter

#2. Being on set is quite difficult, because it's so big and you've got to try and relax, which isn't easy when you know you're in a massive film. I was terrified for quite a long time.

Benedict Cumberbatch

#3. Being on a Paul Thomas Anderson film, the best decision an actor can make is to listen to Paul Thomas Anderson. Because he's probably not going to steer anyone in the wrong direction. I would always say go with your gut on any other movie set, but with Paul, I would say go with Paul's gut.

Rami Malek

#4. We all know that people who've never been on a film set think it's way more glamorous than the people who work on them.

Martin Freeman

#5. It's good to be busy on a film set because there is a lot of sitting around, so if you've got two roles to play at one time, then that's great to do.

Damian Lewis

#6. Of course, it's wonderful to film any period piece - but especially 'Foyle's War' because the art direction is so imaginative and yet at the same time so real. You can open a drawer on set, and even though the camera never sees what's inside, it'll be filled with genuine 1940s documents.

Honeysuckle Weeks

#7. My film school is making movies. But, I do think that being an actor has served me immensely, as both a writer and director, in terms of knowing what is playable and what will be fun to play, for actors, and also how to communicate to actors on set, and not screw them up and get them in their head.

Josh Radnor

#8. A day on a film set is maddening.

Maggie Siff

#9. In terms of drama school, what that will give you that you won't necessarily learn on a film set is the technical ability - ie, projecting your voice and stage craft.

Daniel Radcliffe

#10. Nothing can teach you what it's like to work on a film set, and the best education there can be for an actor is to walk up the street and observe human nature.

Rosamund Pike

#11. There's nothing like the discipline of having to work on a cold film set on the Danubian plain in Bulgaria. Boy, does it get cold.

John Rhys-Davies

#12. I'd never watch a horror film, but after I found out I was going to be in one, I watched, like, four of them, including The Shining, I was terrified - I couldn't sleep for days. But I wanted to get myself used to things I was going to see on the set.

Jennifer Love Hewitt

#13. One of the best things - and something I'm grateful for every time I walk onto a film set - is my six and a half years on Dawson's Creek and the experience it afforded me in how to get comfortable with the camera.

Michelle Williams

#14. If someone were to hire me for a film they'd be getting a certain kind of package, that's for sure, a certain set of tools. But I would listen to the director.

Mike Patton

#15. When you're on a set it can be very tedious and slow. It's just not as big as when you see it on film.

Sanaa Lathan

#16. I can't see any reason why a film shouldn't be stylized and visually beautiful. I don't think a beautiful set is pretentious.

Alain Resnais

#17. I could be equally happy on a film set or in the middle of a field.

Samantha Morton

#18. E'en Beauty mourns in her decaying bower,
That Time upon her angel brow should set
His crooked autograph, and mar the jet
Of glossy locks. Lo! how her chaplet green,
The hoar frost and the canker worm destroy.
Decay's dull film obscures those matchless eyes.

Isaac McLellan

#19. I love the energy of an independent film set. No one is there for the money. Everyone is there 'cause they really want to be there. It makes all the difference in the world. It's without ego and agenda, other than just wanting to fulfill a creative dream.

Mamie Gummer

#20. Mike Leigh taught me about making choices - as an actor, you choose between being honest and clever, and with Mike, it's always about being honest. I learned how to behave on a film set from Jim Broadbent. He was a great example of someone with a fantastic career who kept his feet on the ground.

Eddie Marsan

#21. I usually befriend the camera department very early on in the film and drive them nuts. I'm constantly bombarding them with questions and going through the stills photography. A film set is a great place for me and I love it.

Eric Bana

#22. For me, acting is about the art of it and it's about being on a film set and doing your thing, painting a blank canvas.

Shailene Woodley

#23. On a film set, for me, there's so much more time to process what's going on than there is on a television set. There's more wiggle room to try things and fail and try again and get to the heart of what's going on in the scene, which is really fun for me. It's what I like to do.

Taylor Schilling

#24. When I'm making an American film, it's more safe because there are so many people on the set to watch me. Whatever I do, they say, 'What are you doing!? Tell me first!' There are so many restrictions.

Jackie Chan

#25. In film roles, I play a lot of heavies and a lot of bad guys, so I tend to be the jokester and the good-time Charlie on the set.

Bob Gunton

#26. The way you set up for a sequel is by having a successful film. The focus is on making a successful film, and making a film that travels around the world, and that people enjoy and have fun with, and that people are able to escape with.

Peter Berg

#27. I used to not listen that much, but I've really learnt to listen to other people and to really listen to what they're saying. I've found, especially being on a film set, people have so many different stories; if you just listen, you can pick up so much stuff. I try to listen as much as I can.

William Moseley

#28. He set down his chili dog, and after a pondering moment of silence, he replied with words of wisdom I'd never forget: "Fuck women. Fuck school. Fuck money. Go write some books, get a good agent, lift weights, get tattoos, and never do a film with Keanu Reeves.

Jon Konrath

#29. I'm actually quite different when I'm there [ in the university] to how I am on a TV or film set. It's very challenging and I really, really like it. And I enjoy being in that environment.

Yasmin Paige

#30. Billy Wilder is really is a heavy influence on Bound. We felt that film noir was a genre where you could create a really contained story. We wanted to be on a set as much as we could to get the kind of style level we were looking for.

Lana Wachowski

#31. I don't want egos and personalities on the set that make it more difficult to make the film. I don't want people who take the focus away from the movie and the ideas behind the movie.

Neill Blomkamp

#32. 'Slow West' is a film that I did with Michael Fassbender in New Zealand and Scotland. The director was John McLean. It's a film set in the 1800s. I play a young Scottish boy brought up in the royal family. I fall in love with someone who works on our land.

Kodi Smit-McPhee

#33. Oh, what the hell did I know? I went to the set the first day in full makeup and the director told me to take it off. So I did the film without makeup. I had nothing to do with anything I did. I never understood why I was so famous.

Ava Gardner

#34. When you're supposed to be close and friends in the film, the moment you're talking as friends off the set, it makes it that much better when you're filming.

Kevin Hart

#35. I didn't go to film school. I got my education on the set as a niche publicist in the film industry.

Ava DuVernay

#36. The main thing that I learned from editing is that most people, when they're making a film, they start too early into the story. They will try to set up the characters, they will try to establish things before the plot actually starts.

Steven Zaillian

#37. It's amazing how much you can absorb on a film set.

Mia Wasikowska

#38. My first film was a movie shot in 1974. I was 18 on that movie set. It was called 'Big Bad Mama.' I turned 19 on the next movie I worked on, which was a black 'Blazing Saddles.' I worked in the art department. It was called 'Darktown Strutters.'

Bill Paxton

#39. Some fifteen to twenty Burgess species cannot be allied with any known group, and should probably be classified as separate phyla. Magnify some of them beyond the few centimeters of their actual size, and you are on the set of a science-fiction film ...

Stephen Jay Gould

#40. I get quite fed up being on a film set day after day, six days a week. It can get to be a grind.

Josh Hartnett

#41. When I made my first film, I didn't think of it as directing, so it wasn't like I set out to become a director.

Kathryn Bigelow

#42. I'm lucky that I get to jump around, do a big-budget comedy and then a smaller film. I don't even make a big distinction between them. No one believes this, but it's the same. I'm the same person, trying to make it work. I just love being on a movie set. I like making movies.

Richard Linklater

#43. I don't think I could ever have a desk job, so I get to be mobile. I'm on set. I get to walk around kind of doing my own thing, being independent - it's just a really good vibe. Everyone on a film set is very happy, and they all love their jobs, so it's a cool environment to be a part of.

Jean-Luc Bilodeau

#44. Even if I set out to make a film about a fillet of sole, it would be about me.

Federico Fellini

#45. I think being on a film set for such a long time made me a technical actor without realizing it.

Daniel Radcliffe

#46. 47 Ronin is a very special movie for me. Not only a Samurai thing. Not only a Hollywood fantasy. It has a very special mixture between Japanese traditional culture and Western culture for the costume, set, story. Everything. I believe it will be a very special film that no one has ever seen.

Hiroyuki Sanada

#47. Your slippers last a lot longer in your bedroom. On a film set, they do get very scuffed up.

Martin Freeman

#48. Until I'm on the set of a film, to me it's still not for real.

James McAvoy

#49. ('Eraserhead') may seem like a dark film, but my father and I watch it, and all we do is laugh. It was Disneyland everyday on the set. That's when I fell in love with film.

Jennifer Lynch

#50. I always feel scared and insecure on a film set. I don't know any other way.

Penelope Cruz

#51. I am not doing comedy because the genre is successful. If that was the case, I would have done a run-of-the-mill comedy film. I set my own trends. I like to give something new and different to my audiences. I want to do the kind of comedy that has been missing till now.

Emraan Hashmi

#52. It's always scary making a film as I never set anything up or ask anyone to do anything, so I worry that we'll find a story. I have to trust that a film will come out of the journey we embark on. I have many, many sleepless nights.

Kim Longinotto

#53. My mother is like a character who escaped from the set of a Fellini film. She's a whole performing universe of her own. Activists would run a mile from her because they could not deal with what she is.

Arundhati Roy

#54. If you have ten grand, set a date and move forward. If Tom Hanks calls you on Sunday and tells you he wants to be in the film, if he's not there Monday morning, you're shooting without him.

William Dickerson

#55. A lot of directors prefer the solitude of the editing process, but I revel in the craziness of what a film set is.

Alan Parker

#56. I didn't set out to be a villain in film. I'm a character actor, and if my first movie was a comedy, I could have played a geek just as well.

William Zabka

#57. My experience of children on a film set, especially on a big film set like the 'Potter' one, is not wholly positive.

Jessie Cave

#58. There was one titanic guiding light on the film set, and I was in the presence of a true Mahatma, in the deepest and most profound sense of the word.

Ben Kingsley

#59. It just seemed to me to be a great story, set back in its time but something that seemed to have relevance for our time. Now that the film is coming out, it looks like we're back in another time where repression of expression is all the rage.

Philip Kaufman

#60. I was on the set of 'Braveheart' and my mate says to me, 'Do you think this film will be any good?' And I really meant this, too, I told him 'Let me put it this way - It won't win any awards.' Cut to: five Oscars.

Peter Mullan

#61. In a funny way, acting, to me, is all make-believe, even if the film has unicorns in it or is a normal movie that can be set in real-life time. I'm still imagining that I'm a different character, so it's all, in a funny way, like fantasy.

Elle Fanning

#62. Most of my life, I've been on a film set. There isn't anything to learn, not learn, unlearn. It's just in me.

Samantha Morton

#63. Well, a special screening was set up for government officials, so they didn't have to see the experience of going to see the film. They certainly aren't going to the projects to see for themselves the situation.

Mathieu Kassovitz

#64. Recording a song for a film doesn't take much time; it's hardly an hour's job, but concerts are constant, and so is travelling, so I've to take time out to work on my albums because I'm passionate about creating my own music. When you love something dearly, you set your priorities accordingly.

Kailash Kher

#65. I'm writing a film called 'Bug.' It's an original script, and it's not about killer insects. It's a thriller set in a high school. The bug of the title refers to a surveillance device.

Wes Craven

#66. The film 'Black Orpheus' is one of my favorite films of all time, which is set in Carnival in Brazil.

Win Butler

#67. I think what you learn, working on a film or TV set, is how to tune certain things out. You've got 60-100 people swirling around you, each of them with a very important job to do.

Wentworth Miller

#68. My dad, for the first 15 years of my career, on every visit he made to a play or a film set, would find the oldest person on set and say, 'Do you think my son has a future?'

Kenneth Branagh

#69. I miss the comraderie of live television - the fact that you were on the set, you worked closely with the director and the cast, that I miss. But, no, I'm happy, I'm happy doing film.

Rod Serling

#70. When I'm working with Red One, we all have to do everything, from making sets and costumes to tearing tickets. Forget about craft services! So when I get on a film set, it's a thrill to be just working as an actor.

Joe Dinicol

#71. When you're working on a film, it's not theater; you don't have a few weeks of rehearsal. A lot of times you are showing up on set, and you've never been to the place; you've never met the other actors you're working with.

Ben Schnetzer

#72. The difficulty of writing a good theatre play set in new reality was even greater given that the level of similitude to life that is allowed in a film would not work on the stage.

Andrzej Wajda

#73. 'Control' had to do with my own life a lot, and that's why that seemed to be a film I could be the director of, because I had an emotional attachment to the whole story. And because of that experience, I feel that I can try other films. I didn't set out to become a director.

Anton Corbijn

#74. I learned what I really love is making films, not the film business. I want to be on the set, meeting with writers, I want that freedom. I love it now.

Harvey Weinstein

#75. I meditated before I hosted the Oscars, I meditate before I go on stage, I meditate in the morning and lunchtime when I'm on a film set.

Hugh Jackman

#76. Most people don't really understand what it takes to get a film made, and the struggles .I think anyone who makes a film goes through their own set of struggles.

Barbara Broccoli

#77. I get terrified the first day I'm on a film set. I get nervous walking down a red carpet. I find making speeches the most terrifying thing in the world.

Catherine Zeta-Jones

#78. I think it's counterproductive for actors to come to the set with well-thumbed copies of the book their film is adapted from.

Charles Dance

#79. I was so nervous because I was doing my first film. I didn't want to embarrass myself. I'm an incredibly insecure person, and knowing that I had to go on set in next to nothing, it scared me, but at the same time, I knew it would be a challenge to open me up, not only as an actress but as a person.

Tahyna Tozzi

#80. Some people manage to make that transition from child actor to adult actor seamlessly. But I felt that if I spent my whole life on a film set without taking a few years to do something else, all I would ever know about was film sets.

Anna Popplewell

#81. On a film set, we're all glorified troubleshooters, really, as directors. It's not if a problem arises. It's when.

Christine Swanson

#82. A word on 'Kingdom of Heaven:' if you get the four-disc set, which is 3 hr. 8 min., you'll see why it's such a good movie. It was a real passion project, and it's the film I'm most proud of. I think it was treated incredibly unfairly.

Ridley Scott

#83. One of the main reasons I am so drawn to Hitchcock is that he planned his shots way in advance on story-boards, which he designed like classic paintings (he was an art connoisseur). It's why he found shooting on set boring - because he had already composed the film in his head.

Camille Paglia

#84. My first student film was Orientation, which was basically the set-up for Animal House. There are a couple of scenes that we later borrowed in some form.

Ivan Reitman

#85. I definitely want to go on acting for as long as I can find employment. I'm never happier than when I'm on a film set. I just want to keep working.

Daniel Radcliffe

#86. The idea the actors are the most important people on a film set I think is very stupid. Actors are the most replaceable people there. There are literally millions of us. There's very few people that can operate a steady-cam. The numbers are a lot, lot fewer for that, you know?

Daniel Radcliffe

#87. If you make a film set in London or in Pakistan or wherever, the thing that interests me is the relationships between individuals - individuals and society, individuals and their family, their girlfriend or boyfriend, it's all the same idea.

Michael Winterbottom

#88. With films, you get to develop a set of characters, and then, at the end of the film, you have to throw them away.

Jonathan Nolan

#89. I never make films thinking 'This is my film. This right here is undoubtedly Kim Jee-Woon style.' I am not even sure what 'Kim Jee-Woon style' is. When I make films, I never allow myself to make hard-set decisions ahead of time.

Kim Jee-woon

#90. I think we tried to make a film [Moon] that was about human beings as opposed to going from one special effects set piece to the next one, which is what a lot of science fiction films these days do.

Duncan Jones

#91. Generally, I've never known quite how to fit in in civilian life, but on set, making a film, I know exactly where to go, how to behave and how I fit.

Joe Wright

#92. Every film teaches you something; every experience on every film set with every co-star teaches you something. You learn something new. I think the challenge is to keep working harder and doing better.

Deepika Padukone

#93. After I did nine years of a television series, I didn't want to do anything really that involved going to a set and being in front of a camera for quite a while. And when I did start to want to do things, I wanted to focus more on film.

Gillian Anderson

#94. I had this spooky psychological thing about 'The Piano' before it began, which was how everybody was going to go nuts on the set. Because a film tends to set up the way people are going to behave.

Jane Campion

#95. Goals are ever-changing. I didn't set out to be in a 'Star Wars' film but now I've been in one.

Daisy Ridley

#96. You have to think about what you want to do. There is nothing to say that you should study from the age of 20 to 23. I learnt more on a film set at 17 than in the classroom.

Imogen Poots

#97. It was very much about performances, the whole ensemble thing was just great - everybody working together. Sometimes it didn't feel like a film set. It wasn't technically driven, it was very, very enjoyable.

Cillian Murphy

#98. I believe in rules. I believe in artistic limitations, and I always have. I've always thought that setting out a set of rules before you start, and then being completely consistent with them, is the only way to make a really good film.

Susanne Bier

#99. For film, I audition just like everyone else, because it's a different set of casting directors.

Neil Patrick Harris

#100. Venice never quite seems real, but rather an ornate film set suspended on the water.

Frida Giannini