Movie Directing Quotes

#1. Movie directing is a perfect refuge for the mediocre.

Orson Welles

#2. Directing is like guitar playing. That's a unique mind-set and talent, unto itself. I like the idea of putting everything together to make a great movie.

Slash

#3. Directing a movie is serious, it's not a joke.

Fred Durst

#4. I will never become a director or a movie producer. I was always looking at picture directing because I didn't know what to do! You can't be a movie director without real preparation.

Liam Neeson

#5. I'm thinking, this is Robert Redford. You know, he's won an Academy Award, he's talking to me about directing a movie he's in. So you just think that it's Hollywood stuff or whatever.

Barry Levinson

#6. If I were directing a movie, it would scare me.

Seth Rogen

#7. For me, directing is like writing with meat. I can write live, in real time, and change things and be confident that I'm helping the movie.

David Ayer

#8. After directing movies, I respect any director in this world, because making a movie as a director is tons and tons of work.

Jordi Molla

#9. We always for better or worse try to put on paper what's going up on screen - whether we're directing it or not. It's really just an extension of that habit which is trying to tell the reader what the movie will look like. Ultimately that is the job of a screenwriter to a certain extent.

John Francis Daley

#10. I can't sit on my bum very long in a movie theater seat, and when I'm directing, I always want to move the camera or edit.

Tony Scott

#11. Being a father is like directing Alien or Invasion of the Body Snatchers. It's much more difficult than directing an episode of TV. Also, directing a show or movie lasts a few months at most, parenting lasts for decades.

Misha Collins

#12. Directing is monumentally complicated and it's a function of all the time you pay to it. I think it would be great to do a movie I'm not in, I could just eat Fritos and just say, 'yeah, it's good!' Some day.

Ben Affleck

#13. It was really an experience, being my first time directing a movie. The scenes that I was in, Brooke really directed me all the time. And the scenes that both of us were in, Brooke directed those. Come to think of it, Brooke directed most of the scenes.

Tony Shalhoub

#14. When you're shooting a low-budget movie you're never just the director: you're also in the catering department, and hair and make-up and a part-time grip. I can't even imagine the luxury of not having to keep an eye on every aspect of production while directing.

Amber Sealey

#15. I think it's cool when Scorsese will pop up in a movie or something like that. I never want to make a career out of that or anything. I like directing. That's my favorite thing.

Jody Hill

#16. In a daydream sort of way, I think it would be pretty cool to direct a movie. But I have been on movie and TV sets and know it is hard work. I like directing it in my mind. It is easier.

Michael Connelly

#17. I've never seen a movie director who was happier to be directing a movie than Dave [Mamet]. His sets, everyone who's ever been involved with one of them will tell you of the funnest, funniest sets you can be on.

Clark Gregg

#18. Making a movie and not directing the little moments is like drinking a soda and leaving the little slurp puddle for someone else.

Steven Spielberg

#19. Good directing is about getting the performance to be just what's right for the movie.

Roland Joffe

#20. Directing is the last frontier for women in the movie business. We are studio heads, we are producers and we are writers, but we are not directors in any numbers.

Lynda Obst

#21. I took all my TV experience and what I learned about - by writing and directing and bringing a movie to Sundance - about the realities of the independent film market: 'Transparent' is the marriage of those two situations.

Jill Soloway

#22. Directing a movie precludes me from being involved in any greater way. But, the job was never to do more, it was always to enable. Sometimes as a producer, you're creating and writing it, or sometimes you're writing and directing it, or other times you're there from the very beginning.

J.J. Abrams

#23. I love being a part of storytelling, so whether I'm getting to do that on Survivor, or do it through kids' adventure books, or directing a movie, it's all sort of the same: Once Upon a Time ...

Jeff Probst

#24. Much of directing [a movie] is not directing but just listening and being present in the moment and just keeping your eyes open.

Rian Johnson

#25. I usually don't like to talk about money, but I talk about the movie, and the other aspects of directing, etc.

Tommy Wiseau

#26. I found out it is just as hard to make a movie that you are not proud of as it is to make one you love.

Craig Ferguson

#27. As a storyteller, when you're writing a movie and when you're directing, you want to keep people entertained. That's the whole point, right? It has to be entertaining.

Fede Alvarez

#28. I went through a phase where I was sick of acting, I didn't want to do it anymore, I was bored with it and then I tried directing a movie and I was like: "Shoot, get back over there!" It made me appreciate acting more.

Tina Fey

#29. It's really fun to go back and forth from acting projects to directing projects. You don't have as much responsibility when you're acting, but you have more fun. But then you miss having that responsibility, and so you go back and torture yourself and make a movie.

Katie Aselton

#30. There is a magic factor that is sometimes on a movie set, that is a really, really beautiful thing that cannot be compared to anything else, if you are somebody that is really passionate about acting or directing or the world of movies.

Penelope Cruz

#31. Producers don't like the director who ignores their opinion - but I always try not to be the nicest person when making a movie. It's easy to do that. Just say 'Yes sir', Alright', 'Okay' - but they're not seeing the movie because if they can, they should be directing the movie.

Ryuhei Kitamura

#32. Directing a movie is the greatest job in the world. I could not be more envious of the guys who get to do it all the time.

Jason Bateman

#33. I think the older that I'm getting, the more I'm understand what a privileged job I have, and what an opportunity I have. Now I'm directing films and I'm getting my first movie in America off the ground, and you start to understand how the system really works.

Paddy Considine

#34. I look at the script first and who's directing it and then talk to the director to find out what his vision of the movie is and if it matches my vision and then we go after it.

Frank Grillo

#35. Yeah, it was always a low-budget passion project. It's my directing debut. I've always wanted to make an improv movie because I have so much experience in it, but it's not a big studio movie. It was an experiment that turned out better than I thought.

Matt Walsh

#36. I learned my business in the theater and in television, particularly working with the actors. You can learn much more in the theater than directing a movie, because then you have no time when you are shooting a movie to really work with the actors. You have to learn this craft somewhere else.

Michael Haneke

#37. Without a great man writing and directing for me, I realised I was a mediocre movie star at best.

Diane Keaton

#38. I believe the important part of directing really is finding the right people for the right roles. Sometimes you go for what's expected, and sometimes you go against type because you think that'll really bring something different to the movie.

Renny Harlin

#39. I still don't know much about directing a movie.

Jason Alexander

#40. I relieve myself from the rigours of directing by casting the movie correctly.

John Huston

#41. There's nobody who loves being around actors working more than David Mamet, especially actors bringing his tremendous dialogue to life. I've never seen a movie director who was happier to be directing a movie than Dave.

Clark Gregg

#42. We often hear of a male director directing a great indie and immediately being offered the next huge comic book movie. Rarely, if ever, does this happen to a woman.

Lesli Linka Glatter

#43. I dont work weekends. Weekends are for my kids. And I have dinner at home every night when Im not physically directing a movie - I get home by six. I put the kids to bed and tell them stories and take them to school the next morning. I work basically from 9.30 to 5.30 and Im strict about that.

Steven Spielberg

#44. Having to act like an adult because I was directing a big movie but also feeling like a child because we had reindeer and big cameras and they had fake snow. I just wanted to go play in the snow.

Todd Strauss-Schulson

#45. I love movie-making. I'm interested in writing and directing, and I've dabbled, but I haven't done anything I care to brag about. Yet.

Adam Brody

#46. What really helps a guy to become an action hero today is the directing of the movie. All those fast cuts.

Jean-Claude Van Damme

#47. I was joking with my mom that all Jewish mothers now will want their kids to be filmmakers instead of doctors. Because you can make one film, and suddenly you're directing a 'Jurassic Park' movie.

Colin Trevorrow

#48. I liked Vittorio De Sica a lot, and I got to work with him once in a segment movie. He was a great director. He was a very charismatic character and a guy I watched a lot when he was directing.

Clint Eastwood

#49. Writing a novel is a lot like directing a movie because you are creating a world and a tone, you are creating a large canvas and all the details.

Stephen Chbosky

#50. When I met Peter Weir, we did a movie called 'Master and Commander' together, and that's when I really started to understand the power of acting, the power of directing, finding the emotion in performance.

Robert Stromberg

#51. I learned a lot, in terms of inspiring people. It became very clear to me, very early on, that directing a movie was a lot like being in a theater company.

Matthew Lillard

#52. Making a movie is universal. Directing a movie is universal; it's a universal language.

Morten Tyldum