Movie Set Sayings

#1. 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

#2. I'm just gonna be real grateful to be on any freaking movie set for the rest of my life.

Peter Weller

#3. Once we played for the Princess of Monaco in Paris. We were the biggest ducks ever, wearing rented tuxedos. We trashed the party, took a bunch of girls and champagne in limos underneath the Eiffel Tower, and set up an acoustic show. It was like a Hilary Duff movie.

Conrad Sewell

#4. I was a huge movie watcher, but I really loved 'Kenan & Kel,' 'Rugrats,' 'Doug,' & 'Catdog.' I was also into drama films, though, and I really loved 'Poetic Justice' and 'Set it Off.'

Raven Goodwin

#5. I'd love to do a romantic comedy. And perhaps, if the character was right and I had a good gut instinct, a Bollywood movie. And I'd love to direct. One day. I'm learning a lot on the set of 'The Good Wife.'

Archie Panjabi

#6. My agent called me at 5:30am, and I thought the set of my movie had burned down, or Josh [Hutcherson] had died, or something ... I didn't realize! I was so tired!

Jennifer Lawrence

#7. Any movie I've ever made, the minute you walk on the set they tell you who's the person to buy it from.

Teri Garr

#8. When you act obnoxious towards people, like on a movie set, they say "we're ready for you" and I say "oh, go to hell, my feet hurt and my head aches." You want to have a margarita for lunch, and people like these little ADs and production assistants are like, "well, he's drinking again."

Bill Murray

#9. We're producing a movie now, 'The Onion' Movie, and it's very difficult for me to be on the set. If I'm not right in the trenches, it's very difficult for me to watch another director, because I'm not involved and it's not exciting.

David Zucker

#10. I don't go on set with an army of people because the most expensive elements of a movie production are the plane tickets, the hotel rooms, food and gasoline. If you're willing to discover new colleagues in the place that you are, you can save a ton of money.

Francis Ford Coppola

#11. The goals are not about the sweet smell of success as much as it's about enjoying a damn day on the movie set ... I live in a complete state of grace.

Peter Weller

#12. You set out to tell a good story. You don't do it because there is a deep message involved because the movie is almost always bad when you do that.

John Lee Hancock

#13. Even exciting places are boring most of the time. Wars. Movie sets. Emergency rooms.

Ann Brashares

#14. Maybe if you spend your life pretending you're on a movie set, you don't ever have to admit that the walls are made out of paper and the food is plastic and the words in your mouth aren't really yours.

Jodi Picoult

#15. Now, honestly, every movie set that I go on, I walk onto set with the confidence that there is nothing that they can throw at me that's gonna surprise me.

Emma Watson

#16. He's a legend and I respect his work, so I went down and paid my respects when Charlton was on the set. He was nice but I think he lied a little. He said it was an honour to be in a movie with me, but I don't believe it.

Mark Wahlberg

#17. I never set out to make a movie that was everything to everybody; if that were the case, we could all just take a picture of a tree and agree that the tree is beautiful and move on with our lives. I wouldn't even need to show up.

Shane Carruth

#18. I think title sequences are an opportunity to sort of set the stage or to get people thinking in different terms than maybe whatever they understand the movie to be going in.

David Fincher

#19. I'm at my happiest when I'm on a movie set. It's like therapy for me.

Lindsay Lohan

#20. On an animated movie, I'm learning as I go. There are so many details in animation. Doing the voices was the easy-part. Doing live-action, you have to be on the set, every day.

Graham King

#21. Any athlete or any actor who's preparing for a long time to step on a stage or step on a field or step on a movie set, who suffers an injury right before you're getting ready to perform or to execute - it is a massive challenge that's thrown your way that you didn't expect.

Dwayne Johnson

#22. 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

#23. A writer doesn't really have much of a function on a movie set.

Tom Stoppard

#24. No one trusts me any more. I spent half the movie Maigret (1988) (TV) arguing with people and I was accused of causing big on-set rows. But what they won't tell you is I fought for Simeneon. I fought for the maintenance of quality. I don't believe in lyin.

Richard Harris

#25. We needed to have a great set decorator, a great D.P., a great costume designer, everybody. Without all these people, we would have made a shitty movie.

Vincent Paronnaud

#26. 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

#27. It was a lot of fun on the set. I had the most fun making that movie out of all of them. I'm sure if I sat and thought about it, but none that I could think of offhand.

Jason Mewes

#28. With each movie I have a different set of inspirations.

Wes Anderson

#29. Since I was 12 or 13, I have been taking movie meetings finding a project right for me because I wanted to try it. Craig gave us the script - it was set in Wales, it is really British humour. I just loved it.

Charlotte Church

#30. In the acting world, you can really only become good by practicing and doing it, and I just think every time you walk onto a set you just become better and better. I think I'm in a totally different space than I was back then on that first movie set.

Terrence J

#31. You never know what to expect when you're a writer visiting a movie set.

Bryan Burrough

#32. On a movie set that works, you have your father figure, the director, you have your siblings, your other actors.

Richard Gere

#33. I'm having my platform run up by a movie set designer, so it will be very impressive from the front, but not too premanent. After all, there's no sense putting a lot of time and thought into something you'll have no use for after you're elected.

Gracie Allen

#34. 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

#35. Certainly in the movie business there are bullies all over - bullies in the distribution business, exhibition business, production. Fine-tuning adult bullying is different. When a bully is an adult, it's a whole different set of colors.

Martin Kove

#36. I'm proud of 'Sinister' because Scott and Cargill did a great job on the movie, and I set up a framework for them to make what they wanted to make. They gave me the idea, and I figured out how to get it out into the world.

Jason Blum

#37. I never go on a movie set as the star. I always go as the guy who just does his job, like the electrician does his job and the hairdresser does her job. Let's all work together and make this happen, rather than have the star treatment. I don't do that.

Arnold Schwarzenegger

#38. If you're asked something on a movie set and you say 'I don't know,' you lose confidence in every department. What you need to say is 'I'll have that for you in five minutes.'

Mike Birbiglia

#39. It's just fun to be on a movie set and looking to find the comedy in sweet, simple family moments.

Sean Astin

#40. We actually did a lot of takes on this movie [J. Edgar Hoover ]. I never left the set wanting more. That's for sure. I don't know. This was a very difficult character for me and a lot of the other actors here, and at times we went and did 8 or 9 or 10 takes on a single day.

Leonardo DiCaprio

#41. I usually set aside a lot of time in advance of a movie with important roles for kids to search, but when you have great ones, they can be a real ace in the hole.

Wes Anderson

#42. You have to throw yourself into a situation of trust with these things, especially that first day when you don't know someone and you're on a massive Disney Hollywood movie set.

Richard Madden

#43. 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

#44. Some powers come more easily to others, but Matthew rocks at reading energies."
"What?" I set my fork back down. "Our biology teacher is an alien? Holy crap ... all I can think of is that movie The Faculty." Dee choked on her orange juice. "We don't snatch bodies."
I hoped not.

Jennifer L. Armentrout

#45. 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

#46. Well, you know, I never want to feel like I have a set plan of what I'm supposed to do. I kind of like to go script by script, and if I like the character and like the story that's why I want to do a movie.

Abigail Breslin

#47. Don't set out to make a scary movie and then flinch every time you're supposed to scare somebody because you're afraid of being MPAA or you're afraid of your own demons or whatever.

Andrew Bryniarski

#48. Intimate scenes on a movie set are just dry, bizarre things; people standing around.

Daniel Craig

#49. I don't feel very glowing, especially after wearing makeup - and not necessarily my choice of makeup - for 12 hours straight on a movie set. When I'm playing a character, her look is sometimes different from my own.

Jessica Biel

#50. You really get to direct the movie three times when it comes to the action sequences and the set pieces.

Colin Trevorrow

#51. I recently had a few days off while shooting a movie in Budapest, so I took a cab from the set to the airport, looked at the departure board, and decided where I wanted to go right then and there. I spent four days in Rome and didn't tell anyone I was going.

Cory Monteith

#52. It's an odd thing to go to New York to shoot a movie that is set in Indiana.

Bill Condon

#53. 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

#54. We're trying to set up a movie for me in the near future. It's going to be similar to the story of how I got discovered. Kinda like my own version of '8 Mile.'

Justin Bieber

#55. Sometimes when you get on a new movie you kind of how to figure out the way other people work and it can be like being the new kid in high school where you're just trying to find out where your place is on the movie or on the set.

Luke Wilson

#56. Angelina Jolie may get Antonio Banderas in bed for eight hours on a movie set, but I get him in bed everyday.

Melanie Griffith

#57. It's really easy to finish a movie and sort of immediately dive into the next one, because I love working with actors so much and being on set, my inclination is to try to get back to that as soon as possible. There's just never much of a gap.

Joe Swanberg

#58. 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

#59. I don't know if 'Crash' is a good movie or not because I didn't set out to make a movie. Really, what I wanted to do is more of a social experiment.

Paul Haggis

#60. Can't step from one movie set to the next. Only Samuel L. Jackson can do that. All us mere mortals can't do that!

Ice Cube

#61. I tend to stay in character between scenes ... to be rather serious on set, but here's why, and I think people will find it surprising. I'm one of the worst 'corpses' on a movie set, which means you can't keep a straight face. You start to get the giggles and you can't stop.

Christian Bale

#62. My mom and dad - they were always there. They were always on the set. They focused on our family life. The entertainment business wasn't the end-all. They weren't out to get the next big paycheck or the next big movie. It was about 'What can we do as a family.'

Candace Cameron Bure

#63. Blood, especially fake, and guns, this is bullshit. It works in the movie, but on set it doesn't work for me.

Vincent Cassel

#64. When I did that first movie, it was the introduction to all the set-up time and the waiting time that's endemic in motion pictures, and the repetition.

Harry Shearer

#65. I've always lived out of a suitcase. I was in a new city every three months. When I was a model, I traveled the world, and as an actor you're traveling from movie set to movie set. So I've never been in one place long enough for anything super-bad to happen.

Krysten Ritter

#66. What you write on the page has nothing to do with when you're on set. When you're on set, it has nothing to do with when you're in the editing room. And when you're in the editing room, it has nothing to do with the final movie. You just have to let it go.

Lori Petty

#67. I've spent many birthdays on a movie set, all great days.

Tom Cruise

#68. They were fun days, and we set the town on fire with every movie we did.

Burt Lancaster

#69. It used to be for writers that that six seasons and a movie thing, that's the holy grail as writers - your series goes eight, 10 seasons, you're set for life.

Noah Hawley

#70. There is no more interesting place in the world to meet characters than a movie set.

Will Rogers

#71. I start with the music before I start writing the movie. It's such an important part for me, emotionally, to set up the tone for the movie.

Max Winkler

#72. My first real kiss was actually on the set of 'The Vampire's Assistant' with Jessica Carlson who plays my crush in the movie. I was 15, she was 14. It was actually her first kiss too, so it was an interesting situation!

Chris Massoglia

#73. Being on a movie set is wonderful experience, but it's a bubble - it isn't real life.

Jamie Campbell Bower

#74. My parents love it! They're on set. They make cameos in the movie. My father is a psycho-analyst and a professor at Harvard and he told me how many of the other professors at Harvard have gone and seen it. They love Hostel and they love the thought behind it.

Eli Roth

#75. I went back to China and did a movie in Mandarin, and I don't speak Mandarin, so I learned it phonetically. Now, when I'm on set and somebody gives me English lines, I'm like, "Are you kidding? What's happening? This is amazing!"

Maggie Q

#76. 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

#77. I'm intimidated every day I go on the stage and everyday I go on a movie set. It's terrifying and I always want to reshoot the first day or the first week, I'm so terrified.

Catherine Zeta-Jones

#78. To grasp and hold a vision, that is the very essence of successful leadership-not only on the movie set where I learned it, but everywhere.

Ronald Reagan

#79. The first set I remember was 'Ghostbusters.' It was a scene in which the street erupted. I remember even at seven years old thinking, 'Wow, if you direct a movie, you can break the streets of New York.'

Jason Reitman

#80. Ethan Hawke is not a horror movie fan, but he's a really good friend of mine, and I finally cajoled him into doing 'Sinister.' Later, he said one of the reasons he was really resistant to doing a horror movie is he thought it'd be really scary on set.

Jason Blum

#81. I've never set out to write a funny movie or be a funny comedian as a woman. I am a woman. I don't really have a choice in the matter. My goal is just to be funny.

Maya Rudolph

#82. There's never been a mathematical equation that says a good experience making a movie equates to a good movie, or a bad experience on a set is going to lead to a bad movie.

Joel Edgerton

#83. Amazon, being a provider - not just on the playing field - is, of course, opening up a whole new set of possibilities. At the same time, Amazon also understands platforms. For them, theatrical is an extremely important event. I also believe it's the best way of seeing a movie.

Nicolas Winding Refn

#84. When you're a lead role, I'm learning that you set a tone for the movie in a way, like a director does, or like other actors do. But it seems like you set a mood on set.

Kit Harington

#85. Most people live life on the path we set for them. Too afraid to explore any other. But once in a while people like you come along and knock down all the obstacles we put in your way. People who realize free will is a gift, you'll never know how to use until you fight for it.

The Adjustment Bureau

#86. I still feel like a little boy on the set, watching the movie magic being made.

Lucas Grabeel

#87. She put up her posters, which mainly consisted of one five-foot-wide panorama of Diego Luna doing a split on the set of Dirty Dancing: Havana Nights-which Penelope had decided would be an excellent conversation topic, because that is a movie everyone likes.

Rebecca Harrington

#88. Being on set is a hard thing. A lot of people are like, 'Oh, you get to make a movie, and it's all fun.' But the reality is, it's a lot of hours. It's a lot of reshoots; it's a lot of waiting. And you can become increasingly agitated by the amount of time that you are waiting. But that's real.

Jill Scott

#89. BBC had tried to develop the book, set in England, as a two-hour movie. I went to a meeting and they said, "Look at this," and I thought the book was outstanding. I was like, "Can I do this?"

Glen Morgan

#90. We set up a beta site, a test site, with movie, music and book reviews. If you're reading them and you want to buy a book or a ticket for a movie that's reviewed on the site, you can do that without leaving our site.

Jay Chiat

#91. Britain produces great actors because they learn on stage so know their stuff when they get on a movie set.

Jerry Weintraub

#92. I often compare putting a hotel together to old-time movie production. You come up with a story line, you hire the writer, the director, the stars, the set designer.

Andre Balazs

#93. We've had some really good guest stars. But I have to go with Alec Baldwin as my favorite. He is so neat and such a movie star. He's handsome and quirky. I was in heaven the week he was on the set.

Nikki Cox

#94. A lot of times when people are on campaigns, it can be like a movie set.

Doris Kearns Goodwin

#95. This is the fourth movie that I've done with this set of director-writers and I've learned to trust them at this point, because actually I started on Lego before they did.

Mark Mothersbaugh

#96. My first ever sex scene in a movie was in 'Superbad.' Because I was 17, for legal reasons my mother had to be on the set. It was real awkward, but it worked out OK because when I watched the movie with her, the sex scene wasn't awkward because she'd been right there when it happened.

Christopher Mintz-Plasse

#97. I think I would have been so much in awe of the movie set, the people and what everybody's job was, that I don't know if I would be able to concentrate on the character.

Daisy Fuentes

#98. You know, OJ was a really nice guy, and he knew his lines. He was nice to everybody on the set. He got to be a better actor, I thought, with every movie.

David Zucker

#99. I never want to turn something down because I'm afraid to do it, because of some idea of image or whatever. That was never anything I set out to do. In fact, the opposite, I always want to confuse people in terms of any kind of image and be unpredictable in any kind of movie I make.

Christian Bale

#100. Whenever I set out in a new direction, whether it's with a new band or being a frontman or writing a comic book or entering into movie scoring or anything like that, I wouldn't say that I do it fearlessly.

Tom Morello