Quotes About Directing

#1. There's a tendency, when you're directing yourself, not to give the performance as much care, because you feel like there's too much focus on yourself, or that all these people are just standing around setting everything up, waiting for you.

James Franco

#2. When you are acting, you are just one piece of the puzzle. You don't see how everything fits together. It feels like you have less authorship over the entire product. In directing, you take the entire picture into account, so you're challenged in a different way.

Misha Collins

#3. I DECLARE that God has a great plan for my life. He is directing my steps. And even though I may not always understand how, I know my situation is not a surprise to God. He will work out every detail to my advantage. In His perfect timing, everything will turn out right. This is my declaration.

Joel Osteen

#4. The biggest edge I live on is directing. That's the most scary, dangerous thing you can do in your life.

Tony Scott

#5. The tantric path involves taking the mind and directing it beyond the senses.

Frederick Lenz

#6. Sean Penn, for his acting as well as his writing and directing. There are so many actors I respect, but his reach is so wide.

Boyd Holbrook

#7. Journaling has become one of the most gratifying and fulfilling practices of my life. Not only do I derive the daily benefits of consciously directing my thoughts and putting them in writing, but even more powerful are those I have gained from reviewing my journals.

Hal Elrod

#8. Once upon a time the future was supposed to be brighter, shinier and more fun. When did that vision pass? When did the word 'new' lose it's luster? Now the past is supposed to hold the hopes we once confided to the future. We're directing attachments that used to go forward backward.

Ann Marlowe

#9. For me, acting is like a holiday. When you're directing, you have a strong sense of responsibility for others. It's exciting but exhausting, especially when you're like me: always wanting to break the rules.

Simon McBurney

#10. I'm 64 years old, and I've been acting now for 42 years. Only recently have I thought to myself, 'Hmmm, it may be interesting to start directing.'

David Suchet

#11. The worst part of directing is always seeing the first assembly. It's devastating. It really is. It's like going into the delivery room and you can't wait to see your baby, and it's a crocodile.

David Ayer

#12. Directing is such a crucial part of the writing process; you start directing and you see what does not work. "Oh, God, what was I thinking?" and then you can rearrange it.

Conor McPherson

#13. I have considered the directing, actually. Not so much the writing. That is not really interesting, but the directing is really interesting to me.

Timothy Omundson

#14. To make what you have in your head, I think that's what directing is.

Julie Delpy

#15. If politi-cians - however well-intentioned - were barred from planning, manipulating, or directing the affairs of their fellow citizens, then extremists of Right and Left alike would be kept at bay.

Tony Judt

#16. There's a lot of directing within the stunt coordinator's job.

David Leitch

#17. He [Charles II] was utterly without ambition. He detested business, and would sooner have abdicated his crown than have undergone the trouble of really directing the administration.

Thomas B. Macaulay

#18. Directing takes a lot of time.

Jeff Bridges

#19. I started writing screenplays myself and eventually directing.

Peter Landesman

#20. Throughout whatever I do, I always just say "Director" first. I am directing the storylines and I'm creating what it is.

Shane Dawson

#21. Jesus is not directing the angelic choir, taking long naps, or doing crossword puzzles. He is completely focused on building his church, the hope of the world.

Bill Hybels

#22. The basic principle that we must follow in directing the armies of the Republic is this: that they must feed themselves on war at the expense of the enemy territory.

Napoleon Bonaparte

#23. One thing I'm passionate about is directing. I've always wanted to direct.

Naturi Naughton

#24. To be honest, I don't see myself acting forever. I just can't imagine myself being a 70-year-old man fighting for roles. I would love to do small parts in my friends' movies or things that I'm directing myself. I do envision myself behind the camera as I get a little bit older.

Dave Franco

#25. The universe displays no proof of an all-directing mind.

Auguste Comte

#26. In my mid-20s, I was directing episodes of 'Alfred Hitchcock' and 'Peter Gunn.' I was pretty much on course and - as I sometimes joke - was prepared to devote my life to become the second best film director in my family.

George Stevens Jr.

#27. I don't like to be overly directing people either. I tell them what I want and I tell them when it's wrong. I tell them no, that's not what I want. I want it more like this or more like that. I'm pretty direct with everyone, and I treat everyone the same which might be good.

Julie Delpy

#28. Directing is a constant test of your communicative powers. You're constantly trying to explain people your vision of what you want and steer these tiny little details into a cohesive thing.

Tom Hanks

#29. But God, the ruler of the universe, takes his stand upon it, regulating it and directing everything in a saving manner by the helm of his wisdom, using, in truth, neither hands nor feet, nor any other part whatever such as belongs to created objects.

Philo Of Alexandria

#30. So, if you haven't picked up some tips during an apprenticeship like that, you shouldn't be directing. It doesn't mean you can do it, but it loads you up with information.

Colin Firth

#31. Directing her was like directing Lassie. You need 14 takes to get each one of them right.

Otto Preminger

#32. Always stay true to your nature. Anything that you are being hired for in any aspect of life whether it is a banking job, acting directing, whatever it is you have to stay true to who you are because they hired you to do what you do.

Anne Fletcher

#33. I did all my directing when I wrote the screenplay. It was probably harder for a regular director. He probably had to read the script the night before shooting started.

Preston Sturges

#34. Directing has only increased my admiration and respect for what it is that actors do.

Eric Stoltz

#35. I've come to realise that the most precious commodity in life is not money, time, or even health as such, but mental energy. We should take great care in nurturing, protecting, and directing our mental energies.

Neel Burton

#36. I always say, 'I love producing, but directing is my passion,' and for a while, I had to produce to support my directing habit.

Michelle MacLaren

#37. I made the transition to directing documentaries with the great help of my Co-Director on The World According to Sesame Street, Linda Hawkins Costigan. She was a gracious teacher, and a wonderful collaborator.

Linda Goldstein Knowlton

#38. I love directing. It's where my heart is, and it's the way my mind works.

Melissa Joan Hart

#39. I had kicked around the idea for Good Eats when I was directing commercials.

Alton Brown

#40. I think directing and writing are very different jobs. Obviously, directing is a more social and managerial job. The other thing about directing is that it's a very, very pragmatic job, and writing isn't.

Charlie Kaufman

#41. I have visions and ideas about different things. Other actors just inspire you, so writing is something I would love to do more of. I would really be interested in doing something in that vein, writing something for myself or someone else and directing for sure.

Emayatzy E. Corinealdi

#42. If the film isn't in some way going to study behavior then I'm not interested, but the reason why I'm not interested in directing in film is that it would take me, to be as good an artist as I feel I am an actor, it would take me another 35 just to conquer ...

Bruce Dern

#43. Directing an opera is similar to directing a play. The singing must not get in the way of the drama.

Bruce Beresford

#44. Directing was a great experience, but it's terrifying to have the responsibility of carving up the other actors' performances.

John Krasinski

#45. I love the freedom of writing and then I love the realization of directing. I can't favor one or the other. I enjoy both parts of the process.

Dee Rees

#46. I would love to continue acting. Maybe one day I would like to try writing and directing.

Kara Hayward

#47. Through the wholesale destruction of the representatives of a class that from the beginning of history had been the directing and creative force in civilization, a process began which was almost mechanical.

Ralph Adams Cram

#48. The hardest part about directing is getting everyone on the same page.

Rob Marshall

#49. Acting is the most pure fun as far as jobs go, but it can be limiting in terms of freedom of expression. You are never the master of the story, just a part of it. But writing and directing give you the power of the gods.

David Hayter

#50. We must especially learn the art of directing mindfulness into the closed areas of our life.

Jack Kornfield

#51. Hugh Wilson made it so real and he took us and it was almost when he was directing it, the way he would do it was funnier than the way we did it. And I just developed a regard for him that was unbelievable.

Bubba Smith

#52. The difference between directing film and directing television is so stark simply because TV is a living breathing organism already when you direct an episode.

Jon Hamm

#53. 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

#54. Directing the mind to stay in the present can be a formidable task.

Allan Lokos

#55. I am capable of directing, and I am good at that. In order to have longevity as actors, you have to keep changing it up a bit; you have to bring other talents to the table. I want this to be another feather in my cap instead of replacing what I already have.

Kirsten Nelson

#56. People thought I was dead. But I wasn't. I was just directing 'The A-Team.'

David Hemmings

#57. Making films is much more difficult than people imagine, and so the experience of actually directing them is not one I've ever relished.

Sydney Pollack

#58. I really have very little aspirations about acting because I think that probably the best things have come and gone. I would like to focus on writing and directing. I love writing and directing even though writing can be incredibly painful and lonely. I get great satisfaction from doing it.

Sylvester Stallone

#59. Directing 'The Office' is kind of like someone going, 'Would you like to drive my Lamborghini?' And I'm like 'Yes, I would like to drive your Lamborghini. That sounds like fun.'

Jason Reitman

#60. He wasn't directing it, of course, so I didn't work with Hitchcock.

Sally Kellerman

#61. Well you know, Woody doesn't rehearse, as opposed to my own method of directing where I really work with actors around a round table for weeks, examining the values of the material, so his technique is very different.

Mark Rydell

#62. Directing was a natural thing for me. Actually, it was far less stressful directing than being the lead actor. I was able to have my input in all aspects of it.

Michael Jai White

#63. I've always been interested in character-driven pieces, and my approach to directing is through acting.

Steve Buscemi

#64. Directing is more what I would like to get into eventually. Frankly, I feel like it would be a waste if I didn't because I've spent so much time on film sets, and I know how they work, and I love them, and I love leading them. I would like to do that as a director definitely.

Daniel Radcliffe

#65. I'm so grateful to be living doing what I love. Whether it's acting in Films or TV shows or writing and directing my own projects.

Kyle Cassie

#66. I love the incredible variety of demands directing makes on you, from the entrepreneur to the hustler to the deal-maker to the writer; to directing actors and the camera and working with music, sound, marketing and promotion. It uses so many sides of your brain.

Tom Hooper

#67. I was very glad later when I was directing that I wasn't in the hands of a cinematographer and hoping that he would do it well. I would know what he was doing, and we could discuss how that scene would look.

Nicolas Roeg

#68. That I'd been letting life act itself out on me when I should have been directing it.

Catherine McKenzie

#69. Trust is the glue that holds everything together. It creates the environment in which all of the other elements win-win stewardship agreements, self-directing individuals and teams, aligned structures and systems, and accountability can flourish.

Stephen Covey

#70. I was already sort of mixing my science physics enthusiasm with entertainment and directing and puppetry.

Brian Henson

#71. Luckily, I've never been offered a directing job that was lucrative. I've never heard, "Here's $800,000 to remake Sisters."

Lloyd Kaufman

#72. This is one of the benefits, as well as one of the difficulties of directing a member of your family. You know where the buttons are. You can push them if you want.

Emilio Estevez

#73. I can make a better living as an actor than I can as a director. Though I certainly would prefer to be directing movies.

Sean Penn

#74. I do have aspirations when it comes to directing, I suppose, but in a sort of a vague way. It would probably come about if I found a project that I really felt passionate about.

Guy Pearce

#75. I think one day I want to be on the other side of the camera-maybe directing.

Mary-Kate Olsen

#76. To attempt this would be like seeing without eyes or directing the gaze of knowledge behind one's own eye. Modern science can acknowledge no other than this epistemological stand-point.

Wilhelm Dilthey

#77. Drumming is like film directing. You build a framework for everyone to create something together.

James Genn

#78. Unless you're a directing producer of a television show, for the most part, the director comes in one week to direct and episode, and then leaves. I'd much rather produce television and occasionally direct an episode of a show I'm producing, then just come in as an outside director.

Eric Balfour

#79. This kind of directing, I think, is very similar to being a football coach. You prepare your players and place them in the right places, but once the game is on, there's nothing much you can do - you can smoke a cigarette or get nervous, but you can't do much.

Abbas Kiarostami

#80. I've always wanted to work with Elizabeth Banks. She's so talented and funny, and she's become this force of nature - directing, producing. Being around her is kind of inspiring.

Gillian Jacobs

#81. Because I've always been more afraid of writing than I have of doing anything visually such as directing or acting.

Renee O'Connor

#82. Directing a film was something I was yearning to do. I always wanted to see if I had the capacity to be a good storyteller.

Kevin Spacey

#83. I make my living doing freelance directing for North American television shot in Toronto, series like Alfred Hitchcock Presents, Twilight Zone, and so forth.

Atom Egoyan

#84. For a lot of my childhood, I didn't want to direct movies because I didn't really know what directing was.

Peter Jackson

#85. Victor Hernandez, like an orchestral conductor directing his troops ...

Jon Champion

#86. If you make the right choice in casting, your work is nearly done already. You don't have to spend a lot of time directing the actors, because they're so well suited to the parts.

Jean-Pierre Jeunet

#87. I found, through the process of doing 'The Perks of Being a Wallflower,' that I really love directing movies and I love writing books and so this will become the centerpiece of my career for the next ten or twenty years. Doing these adaptations.

Stephen Chbosky

#88. 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

#89. When I think about directing a film, the thing that stops me short is wondering if I'm a natural at it the way I think you, and PTA, and Fincher are born directors. Maybe some people's talent is in understanding the ways that film communicates, without dialogue, without plot.

Edward Norton

#90. This was clearly one of those moments. Mild-mannered, Dexter-Devoted Rita, who never lost her temper and never, never said bad words, was doing both at the same time and directing it all at her innocent-just-this-once husband. But

Jeff Lindsay

#91. Cukor is one of my favorite directors. He was a master at directing women.

Pedro Almodovar

#92. To be clear, we [the Department of Education] want curriculum to be driven by the local level. We are by law prohibited from directing curriculum. We don't have a curriculum department.

Arne Duncan

#93. Acting is the easiest money you'll ever make in your life, and directing is probably the hardest money.

Charles S. Dutton

#94. As an actor, if you want to while shooting, you can run back to your trailer and take a nap. But you cannot do that while directing.

Misha Collins

#95. Directing is: you're overwhelmed the whole time. Your mind never stops. If you care about it. You wake up in the morning and you begin thinking about it and then you go to sleep at night and you're still thinking about it.

Campbell Scott

#96. It does not merely indicate something about her behavior, but about her desires. She is not reward motivated. Yet she is extremely good at directing her thoughts and actions toward her goals. This explains both her tendency toward harmful-but-selfless behavior

Veronica Roth

#97. The dynamics of film directing and fashion design - in the ways that I've done it - were not dissimilar.

Tom Ford

#98. The root of the whole evil lay, particularly in Schonerer's opinion, in the fact that the directing body of the Catholic Church was not in Germany, and that for this very reason alone it was hostile to the interests of our nationality.

Adolf Hitler

#99. When God's leading and directing, you don't have to kick the doors open.

Jeremy Camp

#100. I believe I am a better director than actor. I enjoy acting if the part is right. Directing comes very naturally to me. I enjoy it. I am very confident in my work.

Jack White