Top 100 Quotes About Directors
#1. Some people come up to be directors by coming through the camera department and there's not a lot of women in the camera department. The ones that are have to kind of prove they're one of the boys, I think. I don't want to get into trouble with generalisations but I think it's a fair observation.
Colin Firth
#2. I think film is a world of directors. Theater is a world of actors.
Diego Luna
#3. If you are a 19-year-old woman, there are very specific things that directors and the people in positions of power in the industry - who tend to be older men - are going to want you to be and do. They are not going to want some chatty, difficult, slightly spoilt girl.
Romola Garai
#4. Many Mexican directors are scared to shoot in Mexico City, which is why there are many stories in Mexican cinema about little rural towns, or set a hundred years ago.
Alejandro Gonzalez Inarritu
#5. One of the most interesting aspects of the film project was collaborating with so many people - directors, filmmakers, and writers - over a five-year period. I learned that there are two components to this.
Yo-Yo Ma
#6. I always wanted to direct. Directing is a lot more of a commitment though, a lot more time. I like directors who do very few takes, they know what they want.
Robert De Niro
#7. If it were up to the executives, they probably wouldn't have directors at all.
Gus Van Sant
#8. Very broadly speaking, you can put directors into two areas: One for whom you work, and the other with whom you work. And I prefer the latter, for obvious reasons.
John Hurt
#9. Every character I've ever played, I always try to take him right to the edge and not allow him to fall over, but directors have a tendency to pull me back a little bit.
R. Lee Ermey
#10. We encouraged volunteers to think of themselves not as people who run errands to keep a program going but as spiritual directors in the lives of students. Chris Folmsbee
Mark DeVries
#11. Most directors have one masterpiece by which they are known. Kurosawa has at least eight or nine.
Francis Ford Coppola
#12. There are cliques in Bollywood, and people stick together, but I have always tried to stick to my work. As an industry, Bollywood is very competitive, and I'm very competitive as a person, but I've never been a part of any clique, and I've always worked with all actors and directors, all camps.
Priyanka Chopra
#13. What makes people and companies and artistic directors and choreographers interested in working with dancers is the ability to kind of let go of everything you think you know and be a blank canvas.
Misty Copeland
#14. I do listen to a lot of music. Actually, I very often ask directors if they can offer up a play list. They very often have one anyway that they're listening to.
Dan Stevens
#15. It's not the ideal situation to have two directors. It's just not the ideal thing.
Donna McKechnie
#16. I'll say this, I'm no stranger to working with a foreign cast, foreign directors, that sort of thing. I love it, because I think that when you have people from different countries, it sort of brings everyone together, it's more of a worldly film.
Jaimie Alexander
#17. I've gotten to work with some wonderful directors and people who have been great teachers to me.
Lyle Lovett
#18. I watched a couple of really bad directors work, and I saw how they completely botched it up and missed the visual opportunities of the scene when we had put things in front of them as opportunities. Set pieces, props and so on.
James Cameron
#19. I don't like actors who try to talk directors into making their part bigger and that's really lame.
Franka Potente
#20. I've been working with Spanish, French, some more American, and Japanese directors. And then I realized I have to study English, and that's why I moved to New York two years ago.
Rinko Kikuchi
#21. Most of the time I've worked with directors who write their own scripts. The story is more important to me than the part. The project of the film has always been more important to me.
Catherine Deneuve
#22. When I was in college, my graduation thesis was called 'Female Directors.' I interviewed all of the important female directors from Mexico. There were four. That was it.
Patricia Riggen
#23. The beautiful thing about it is that no two directors or actors work the same way. You also learn not to be afraid of discussion and conflict.
Ewan McGregor
#24. For most directors, the scriptwriter is about as welcome on set as a member of the Taliban.
Julian Fellowes
#25. Our memories are convenient lies we create, cribbing images from others' experiences. We discard the personal specifics which don't conform to the ideal conventional beauty created by art directors and cinematographers.
Damian Loeb
#26. I still write. I'd love to write more trashy chick-lit. At the moment, I just re-write my own lines, which probably annoys most directors - though, thankfully not Adam Brooks!
Isla Fisher
#27. I'm always in awe of directors because they're just holding so much stuff in the air. They've got so many decisions that they need to be making and they have to have the complete overall look of what the piece of artwork is.
Dominic Cooper
#28. As a director, you never get to watch other directors work, and you also don't get to collaborate with other directors that much.
Spike Jonze
#29. I'm just trying to choose interesting, quirky projects or things with interesting directors or just movies that have a lot of people I like attached to them so I know I'm going to have a good time.
Douglas Booth
#30. TV directors just aren't sexy for some reason, Although, you know, Rob and Kim [Manners] are very sexy in my eyes.
David Duchovny
#31. A lot of new American directors have had mentors who have given them advice. And some of them have had the way paved for them by huge Hollywood directors who saw a younger version of themselves.
Julie Delpy
#32. It was a movement that had all the art critics, all the museum directors in its thrall.
Jack Levine
#33. I worked on three independent movies in close succession and ... I really learned from those directors how to stay on budget, make your days, get it done, keep everyone happy, which is a huge thing in a movie, and to steer the ship.
Michael Urie
#34. Stoller is one of my favorite comedic directors - one of my favorite directors that I've worked with to date.
Christopher Mintz-Plasse
#35. You need the words, you need the script, you need the material, you need the commitment, you need the passion, it's like we depend on writers, we depend on producers, directors depend on us and once things are in the divine order as they happen.
Nia Long
#36. Most actors go, 'I read the script and fell in love with it'; I fall in love with the directors.
Sam Worthington
#37. Filmmaking is a completely imperfect art form that takes years and, over those years, the movie tells you what it is. Mistakes happen, accidents happen and true great films are the results of those mistakes and the decisions that those directors make during those moments.
Jason Reitman
#38. The similarity between the big directors I've worked with is that they allow the writer to find a way of doing what they want done without saying 'do it this way.' They describe what they want, then letting the writer figure out a way to do it.
Steven Zaillian
#39. As an actor, I have casting issues. I'm a minority. I don't have trouble making a living, but as far as being on the food chain of the pecking order of actors, I'm not at the top of it. With the jobs that I do, there are always control issues with directors and producers.
BD Wong
#40. I can't stand directors who try to micro-manage everything. When it happens these days I just walk off set, saying if they don't like the way I'm doing it they can get someone else.
Anthony Hopkins
#41. I feel that I don't have to wait around for good scripts anymore, that I can get things moving more quickly. I can ring up directors I like and say I'm keen to work with them, which is pretty great.
Chiwetel Ejiofor
#42. I'm not being offered a constant stream of wonderful parts with wonderful directors that would keep me away from the theatre. When they turn up, I do them.
Ian McKellen
#43. What I try to do is make sure that the directors I'm working with are on the same page and want to do the same kind of films. You can really protect yourself as an actor if you work with really good people. It can hide a lot of flaws along the way.
George Clooney
#44. You don't get to see your family much. In the movie business, directors often go out of town for long periods of time, and even if you're in town, you're working 14-15 hour days. People tend to not balance out the important things in their lives with their career.
Jon Favreau
#45. It would be horrible to be micro-managed! I don't think directors can really micro-manage people. It's just impossible.
Janusz Kaminski
#46. My big break was becoming the spokesperson for Texas Instruments. Casting directors really started giving me a chance to read for projects.
Bella Thorne
#47. The time I'm not spending with my kid has to be worth it, so when I sat down with my agents after I was ready to go back to work, I told them: It's all about the directors.
Jessica Alba
#48. I've never been conscious of having any real career plan, and I do not have a wish-list of actors, directors, screenwriters, or cameramen I'm hoping to work with. Life, I feel, has a way of leading us to the right situations and people, or at least to interesting ones.
Viggo Mortensen
#50. Obviously I'd love to work with any of these great directors because every time I've worked with them I've gained a tremendous amount as an actor. Each director has his own way of pushing you towards improving yourself.
Zhang Ziyi
#51. I am always looking for what piece, what artists, what playwrights, what directors, what subject matter is going to catalyze an audience.
Diane Paulus
#52. With Kubrick and most film directors, they are in complete control, but one can influence them.
Ken Adam
#53. I guess I'm not jaded because I still believe that there are good films out there, and there are great directors, and there are great writers. It just takes a little bit more perseverance and a little bit more time to find [them].
Elijah Wood
#54. What I'm looking for is the variety of choices and the opportunity to work with great directors - that's what I'm looking for.
Ludivine Sagnier
#55. I have the highest respect for stars and auteur directors. But I don't want to work with people who only invite me to the preview. We want to be in the collaborative movie business, not the financing one.
Sidney Sheinberg
#56. A sportswriter's life means never sitting with your wife or family at the games. Still working after everyone has gone to the party ... Digging beneath a coach's lies, not to forget those of athletic directors and general managers and owners of pro teams. Keeping a confidence. Risking it.
Dan Jenkins
#57. Acting is always more fun for me.I love being a part of a story, I love collaborating, I love working with different directors. If I just directed more and more, it would lessen the opportunity to work with all these big directors that I've had the opportunity to work with.
John Krasinski
#58. I get crushes on directors because they are so brilliant.
Dorothy Malone
#59. I'm all about working with directors that are doing different techniques and I think everyone has their way of getting it to the place that they think is best.
Liam Hemsworth
#60. Great directors turn in mediocre work and first-time directors turn in exceptional work. No matter how good a person can talk about what he wants, you never know.
Thomas Jane
#61. But it's cool working with female directors because I'm a girl, so you do relate to them more. You can talk to them about other stuff like clothes and all that.
Elle Fanning
#62. I would love to be a fly on the wall watching other directors and actors to see what their process is like.
Chiwetel Ejiofor
#63. We all like indie directors - heck, I even married one ... but we're divorced now.
Rosie Perez
#64. I'm still confounded by how few female directors there are. I don't get it.
Stacey Snider
#65. The more tools we have directors and cinematographers will be able to express more and create different worlds and feelings. It's like having more instruments in an orchestra.
Emmanuel Lubezki
#66. Working with actors really depends on the actor. Most of the directors I've worked with don't really know how to speak to actors, actually; some of the best directors don't.
Martin Donovan
#67. Directors tell me what to do, and I kind of just put my own twist to it, just to get inside my personality that everybody doesn't really get to see - my off-the-court interests and the way I act. It's just me.
Kyrie Irving
#68. I admire directors so much, I find them incredible: they manage such a huge number of people of different characters, think of the money involved.
Catherine Deneuve
#69. People have curiosity, they have intelligence, they have interest in understanding their peers. But producers and directors of cinema have decided that the seats in the theaters have been made to transform people's minds to lazy minds.
Abbas Kiarostami
#70. Somehow I got to be one of five or six actors that the directors would use as guinea pigs at this directing colloquium, where people pay to listen to and watch the directors direct.
Beth Henley
#71. Directors work 10 times harder than anyone else. Get paid a quarter.
William H. Macy
#72. I've been fortunate in my career to have the opportunity to pick and choose the parts I play. I've also been lucky to always be involved with quality actors, quality directors, quality writers.
Powers Boothe
#73. I never made the movies for the critics; I've done the best I could with the material and the directors and the actors I had. But the thing that's really exciting is that once I do that one project that's different, that stands out, everyone's gonna be watching.
Pauly Shore
#74. All directors make films in individual ways. But the classical kind of view of filmmaking is that you have a script and it's very linear.
Paul Greengrass
#75. You have great athletic directors, you let them run it; you keep yourself informed, but I'm not the athletic director. I'm the president of the university.
Gordon Gee
#76. Directors never direct me. They just let me loose.
John Carradine
#77. I think it's easy for directors to stay fresh more than actors, especially once an actor becomes a star. It's hard for Russell Crowe to walk down a street or take a subway. I can fly coach.
Michael Mann
#78. It's great the way the old-time directors used to manipulate the hell out of you. You see someone dying and all of a sudden a ghost would come out and they go walking hand in hand up the stairway.
Sylvester Stallone
#79. I give everything to my work, and I like complex roles, characters that aren't obvious. I've been very lucky so far, and I'm dreaming of working with directors like Jane Campion, Susanne Bier and the Dardennes. But the gods will decide.
Eva Green
#80. I'm more interested in photographing people who have done something, like writers or directors - even billionaires - as long as I can study them before I photograph them.
Francesco Carrozzini
#81. I feel terrible for directors of TV because all the episodes have to look the same. They make a great series for five or six years, and then when it's canceled, they can't break out on their own.
Alejandro Jodorowsky
#82. Great directors can understand the staging in such a way that can make a scene come alive. Others have a certain way of pacing the scene.
Al Pacino
#83. James DeMonaco is one of my favorite directors I've ever worked with. I think he shoots really well and all that, but the work environment he creates - he makes everyone feel respected, he makes everyone feel appreciated, and he's a true collaborator.
Zach Gilford
#84. As I continue through my acting career I tend to wish I were a little shorter and a few pounds lighter so casting directors would call me in for more diverse roles.
James Preston Rogers
#85. I think women directors have to be really tenacious.
Jamie Babbit
#86. Working in film, if you work with great directors, you learn that after every take you must let go. Sitting with my wife at the Academy Awards, we both let the moment just go.
Ben Kingsley
#87. So many directors say nothing beautifully, and so many others say great and profound things but have no idea how to read a light meter or arrange a shot.
George Cukor
#88. Authors are directors of the mind. Think about how you would compose a scene. Make it cinematic.
Kira Hawke
#89. Some directors are like it's their ... nothing can change, nothing can move. I like collaborating, even when an extra has an idea, I like to bring to really have collaboration.
Louis Leterrier
#90. I'd like to produce. I'd like to come up with ideas and collaborate with people and directors and writers that I like, be a part of movies that have the same idea that the movies that impacted me have. I'd like to be able to do that for people.
Emma Stone
#91. The only way that Hollywood ever skews toward liberal is because part of what we make out of Hollywood involves writers, actors, directors, musicians, set designers, and photographers. In general, people like that are going to be more progressive, more open minded, a little more altruistic.
Adam McKay
#92. It takes great skill to tell a compelling story in under 60 seconds. These five directors have mastered the format, using their talent, craft and imagination to provide us with some of the most innovative filmmaking out there today.
Michael Apted
#93. The more shows that are produced, the more writers are hired, producers are hired, actors are hired, directors are hired, it means the more people will get employed. It's better for the economy. It's a fantastic thing.
Kevin Spacey
#94. Different directors have different things, so when I left Mike Leigh, as it were, and I went into other projects after 'All or Nothing,' it took some getting used to - what do you mean there's a script?!?' That kind of thing.
Sally Hawkins
#95. There are directors who desire to be artistic. It is pathetic to compare the seriousness of their aim with the absurdity of their attainment.
W. Somerset Maugham
#96. I don't understand why there aren't more powerful female directors. I don't have the answers, but I hope that things may start to shift and that studios will employ more women to handle strong and interesting material.
Sam Taylor-Johnson
#97. I love working with directors who have good taste. It's incredible when a director can say something and things open up for you. I went to The University of North Carolina School of the Arts, and some of my best experiences on sets have been working with other alums.
Trieste Kelly Dunn
#98. I'm communicating with the directors of the Soviet companies, and I see that it is wrong, but when I go to the official discussions, they discuss we should change the color of the walls.
Anatoly Chubais
#99. Also one of my heroes is Syd Mead, who designed the vehicles for the first Tron, So, there are so many beautiful things happening here. And working with Joe was great. He's an architect, so I worked with other directors in between who were just about the action
Daniel Simon
#100. Amazon has included me in an opportunity to provide top-shelf television-style programming live on the world's computer screens. To hold forth with the industry's very best actors, directors, musicians, authors - I'm thrilled to be on the cutting edge of this.
Bill Maher
