Quotes About Film School

#1. I'm still Sean that me mates went to school with, not Sean the film star. And that's the way I prefer to be.

Sean Bean

#2. In film, I don't think I'd try directing. Maybe one day, but I'd certainly want to go to film school or something before I tried to do something like that. That would be quite scary.

Amelia Warner

#3. 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

#4. 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

#5. I took courses at USC in film editing and art direction and photography when I was still in high school.

Ray Harryhausen

#6. I didn't go to film school, I went to acting school.

Charles S. Dutton

#7. I've been on the board of UCLA Film and TV School, and I went to UCLA. I realized that the same movie theater that was there when I went to school, 30 years later is the same movie theater in the same condition. There was an opportunity to refurbish an existing room, and I jumped at the opportunity.

Darren Star

#8. My father ran London Films. He made films like 'The Red Shoes,' 'The Third Man.' And he had had a long career in the film business, which was bifurcated with a career in intelligence. He had to deal with gangsters, and sometimes he would take me with him. Also, I went to school with their children.

Mark Helprin

#9. On the one hand, we had great filmic spectacles that brought in big audiences, adults as well as primary and secondary school students. On the other hand, there were attempts to create contemporary Polish film.

Andrzej Wajda

#10. I'll have a sentence in my head that's kind of beautiful and interesting, but I'm not sure why or where it's coming from. So it's kind of funny, because when people point out patterns or themes, it's the exact opposite of my film school experience.

Don Hertzfeldt

#11. I made lots of movies while in school while everybody else was running around saying, "Oh, I wish I could make a movie. I wish they'd give me some film."

George Lucas

#12. I would love to go to film school.

Sage Stallone

#13. I was always writing scripts, and I had made several shorts, before and after film school. But I worked a variety of temp positions over the years.

Geoffrey S. Fletcher

#14. I went to school to be a psychiatrist. That's where I was going until I had a teacher-student conference with one of my teachers and there were film school pamphlets, and he said, "You don't belong here. Get out. Go to film school."

Bryan Fuller

#15. 'She's Gotta Have It' and 'School Daze,' I really didn't know what I was doing. And the biggest indicator of that was the acting. 'Do the Right Thing' was like the first film where I really felt comfortable working with actors.

Spike Lee

#16. When I was younger and in primary school, I'd do maybe a film a year, and I had to adapt to being away from everyone for a couple of months.

Saoirse Ronan

#17. I just use all the skills that I learned in film school, and I just incorporate them into my sketches. People don't realize that, with a story, there has to be a beginning, middle and end. There has to be a problem and a resolution. Just because it's six seconds doesn't mean it's not a story.

King Bach

#18. All films are learning processes. I am still trying to work out how you make a movie. I didn't study at film school or any of those things. I didn't bother with film theory.

Terry Gilliam

#19. I first decided to become an actor at school. A teacher gave us a play to do and that had a major impact. At first, I wanted to work in the theatre, but there was something about the ambience of film, especially American films, that always attracted me.

Jean Reno

#20. It can take a long time for some people to find out how to ground themselves, and film sets are an odd atmosphere to do it in - especially if, like me, you finished school early.

Jonathan Rhys Meyers

#21. All the lessons you learn in film school from the people you hate are always the ones that are important. The lessons you think are great and thankful for never end up meaning anything to you.

Glenn Ficarra

#22. I left school with no qualifications, but I was doing theatre and film work and thought that was the best thing since sliced bread.

Dexter Fletcher

#23. After studying in Sheffield, I went down to London to do my post-graduate degree at the National Film and Television School, embarking on the movie that would eventually become 'A Grand Day Out.'

Nick Park

#24. People assume that 'The Expendables' is old school, but it's only old school because that's the way I know how to make an action film. It's pretty real.

Sylvester Stallone

#25. I don't subscribe to the school of thought that as a feature film producer I shouldn't dabble in television, web content, or even comic books ...

Adi Shankar

#26. I didn't go to film school so my learning was done out in public and showed up on the screen.

Jonathan Demme

#27. I took myself out of the business to study film at NYU and the School of Visual Arts. I grew up on movie sets and was fascinated with the camera and behind-the-scenes work. I felt it would help my career as an actor if I knew all aspects of film.

Devin Ratray

#28. I really learned a lot when I worked on my grandpa's film 'Twixt' and got to be with him start to finish and sit next to him every day. That was my film school.

Gia Coppola

#29. Anyone that is able to put a high school film and gonzo journalism together, it's like, "Yes, please!"

Zoe Kravitz

#30. 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

#31. I'd like to go to NYU business school and then go on to film school.

Alexa Vega

#32. I did not go to film school.

Richard King

#33. I definitely think for up and coming filmmakers, people graduating from film school, people that want to do their own movies, horror movies are a great way to go.

Jonathan Levine

#34. I was happy when I got into film school. I'd simply satisfied my ambition to show them that I could get in - nothing else - although I do believe they shouldn't have accepted me. I was a complete idiot. I can't understand why they took me. Probably because I'd tried three times.

Krzysztof Kieslowski

#35. I watch old school film so that I can learn so much that I just sort of miss all the new stuff.

Mike Epps

#36. I always wanted to be a filmmaker and became one through sheer single-mindedness. I came to filmmaking from a background in graphic design. I went to film school at Newcastle Polytechnic.

Neil Marshall

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

Ava DuVernay

#38. I've had much more down in my life than I've had up. And much more struggle. First of all, when I went into the film school everybody said, "What are you doing? This is a complete dead-end for a career."

George Lucas

#39. I have great respect for actors like Jodie Foster and Natalie Portman who went to school the entire time they were acting. All I did was one small little independent film, and I realised I couldn't balance both lives.

Nikki Reed

#40. My M.F.A was in directing, and all the films I've made, for film school and after, I've written, directed and shot.

Geoffrey S. Fletcher

#41. I thought about going to NYU film school - that was this ideal to me. But I didn't make any kind of grades in high school.

Louis C.K.

#42. The public scrutiny element they don't teach you in film school. So few people are ever subjected to it.

Colin Trevorrow

#43. Playing the lead in a film where you shoot for three months away from home is not an easy thing for me when my children are in school and my husband is running a theatre company.

Cate Blanchett

#44. Knowing what I do now, I don't know if I'd ever have the balls to go to film school, with no connections and no knowledge of the business side at all.

Michael Patrick Jann

#45. I am really not of the school of naturalism. I like style, and you can use more style in theater than in film roles. I love to sink my teeth into a part.

Marisa Tomei

#46. When I was in Hungary in December I was looking at student films and I could not tell which ones were shot on film and which ones were shot digitally. I think that is because the filmmakers in Europe go to four years of film school and learn the techniques.

Vilmos Zsigmond

#47. I went to Bournemouth Film School for 3 years.

Joe Cornish

#48. I considered going to film school; I took a course in film and was very interested in filmmaking as well as film writing.

Robert Morgan

#49. It's the thing they don't teach you in film school - what happens after you finish your movie.

Leland Orser

#50. A lot of directors straight out of film school are very technically minded, but they don't have an understanding of actors or how to talk to them.

Peter Dinklage

#51. I went to film school to make films just because you're in control of the story.

Julie Delpy

#52. I see all these students, and I admire them - they're trying to learn something, they go to school, they do film school, they go on shoots, they help. I'm sure they learn a lot, and some of them, it makes them aware of what they wish to do. I was - that's the way I was - autodidact.

Agnes Varda

#53. In order to get [Mean Streets] made I had to learn how to make a movie," says Scorsese. "I didn't learn how to make a movie in film school. What you learned in film school was to express yourself with pictures and sound. But learning to make a movie is totally different.

Peter Biskind

#54. I consider myself a 'local' actor in France. I started out in France, I went to drama school in France and the French film community was very welcoming to me when I was a young actress.

Diane Kruger

#55. Once I went to film school, I realized that film directing was actually much better than theater directing, because you kind of get to stay in control of it all the way through. You don't relinquish the piece to the actors like you have to in theater; you stay in control through the very end.

Mark Waters

#56. I actually went to film school, but I didn't like it. I'm basically self-taught.

Judah Friedlander

#57. I got interested in the justice system. If I was, I'd probably be a defense lawyer. I was headed that way, but luckily changed my track to film school.

Matthew McConaughey

#58. I did this Super-8 film at art school called 'Tissues,' this black comedy about a family whose father has been arrested for child molestation. I was absolutely thrilled by every inch of it, and would throw my projector in the back of my car and show it to anybody who would watch it.

Jane Campion

#59. I think the only time I doubted myself was my senior year in high school. I was not offered a Division I scholarship. I remember a scout from Ohio State coming in and looking at my film. He was all excited to meet me. Then he met me and I was 5'10 and he said that I was not a Division I quarterback.

Doug Flutie

#60. Most of all, I really wanted to become a filmmaker, and I've used every acting experience to just turn it into film school.

Jeremy Davies

#61. It's difficult to do a genre film well, and it doesn't matter if you're talking vampire movies or 'Dawn of the Dead' or 'The Thing' or 'Escape From New York.' Those kind of movies, they understand what the old-school B-movie is supposed to be, they get the throwback of it.

Ethan Hawke

#62. I wanted to stay in New York to pursue acting, but my dad urged me to get a four-year degree. Reading about the film school at Florida State University, he suggested I go there. I received my bachelor's degree in 2003.

Lauren Miller

#63. When I was in film school, I was learning more theory than practice.

Louis Leterrier

#64. We were studying at Newport Film School, and I found that the only way for me to make films - because you need people and you need equipment - was that I had to be a student.

Asif Kapadia

#65. I did theatre a lot when I was a kid. Then I went to acting school in New York. I did a lot of behind the scenes in college. I wanted to learn while I had the time. I studied theatre and film in different capacities.

Justin Bartha

#66. While still a young student at film school, I was lucky enough to get a golden ticket to a Martin Scorsese master class at BAFTA in Piccadilly: fancy, but technically still 'the flicks'.

Asif Kapadia

#67. I went to film school and wanted to learn everything there was about making movies.

Zach Braff

#68. In Wales it's brilliant. I go to the pub and see everybody who I went to school with. And everybody goes 'So what you doing now?' And I go, 'Oh, I'm doing a film with Antonio Banderas and Anthony Hopkins.' And they go, 'Ooh, good.' And that's it.

Catherine Zeta-Jones

#69. 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

#70. I wanted to go to acting school, and I did a few modeling jobs to pay for acting school. I never aspired to be a model. I met lots of photographers, and I learned a lot about light - as a source of love and illumination, light as a gift of love. On film, that's a massive contribution.

Jacqueline Bisset

#71. I went to a theater arts school, so I'm interested in many different projects, whether it be film, television or even live theater. I'm a performer. That's what I do. That's what I want to do.

Derek Hough

#72. It's a bit like school camp, shooting a film. Everyone's on heat. It's a strange energy. It's full of adrenalin. I funnel my excess energy in funny little ways. I do a lot of dancing in my trailer. I love music.

Alice Englert

#73. I was really fortunate that I went to a high school where we actually had a film theory program.

David Brooks

#74. Maybe not many women are going to film school.

Gillian Armstrong

#75. I spent a lot of time making music and touring around the country and living the weird life. I was just trying to keep a job and get by. So in a lot of ways, I went through a strange version of film school. So you live through a lot of things, and put them into your work.

Dito Montiel

#76. I wasn't the kind of kid like Spielberg or Lucas who knew to go to film school. I didn't know at 12 what I was going to do; it took me until I was about 23. I studied journalism in college, but after school, I got a job in public television and I never worked as a journalist for one moment.

Nancy Meyers

#77. I've made some great movies. 'Risky Business' still stands up. It's timeless. They study that film in film school.

Rebecca De Mornay

#78. For the three years I was in school training to be an actor, I was told, 'It's very unlikely you'll work at all on the stage or in film', so I feel I have to take all the opportunities I can.

Dominic Cooper

#79. I was out in L.A. and I had gone to film school and I was out here for a couple of years. For a lot of years, I was bartending and having a good time.

Justin Zackham

#80. There's a great deal of women in film school. I was not the only woman in my class at UCLA. When I went through the Sundance program, it was half women and half men.

Gina Prince-Bythewood

#81. When I was in school, and even after, I did a lot of classic plays, and I guess it sort of extended into film.

Andre Holland

#82. It was the beginning of film for television. So we had all of these great opportunities. Northwestern was probably the only major film school of its kind at the time that was graduating anybody important.

Richard Donner

#83. My first job was playing 'Nurse 2' in a film by Ben Elton called 'Maybe Baby,' and the first actors I worked with professionally were Hugh Laurie and Joely Richardson. I was totally star-struck. I got that job on my final day of drama school, so it was a nice bridge into the professional world.

Shelley Conn

#84. I conveniently was not accepted to film school, which I applied to in 1987, and so I decided I would become a filmmaker instead of a student.

Ira Sachs

#85. I dropped out of school at 17 and joined the Irish band The Frames, getting my first glimpse into the world of professional film making while shooting of a number of rock videos.

John Carney

#86. As an actress, I never went to film school, and I think if I had gone to film school, I would have started with a great advantage. If you have a strong intent to do anything in life, you can do it, but it always helps to have formal training.

Preity Zinta

#87. When I met David Green at film school he always used to offer free haircuts - he was kind of an artisan. In a lot of our films, he's constantly trying to give me weird looks.

Danny McBride

#88. The informing idea of what you want to say and do, that's what will take you from film school to professional - the idea. That's what is original to you.

William Friedkin

#89. When I was at drama school I wanted to do classical theatre. It just so happened that I did a film when I came out and I moved that way.

Andrew Lincoln

#90. Most young people make films to be accepted, to be discovered, when in fact that was the last idea with the group I went to film school with. To be discovered was not our intention. Our intention was to tell our story our way, and make our own mistakes and learn from film to film.

Haile Gerima

#91. I love doing research. I'm a film-school geek.

Brian K. Vaughan

#92. I just love film making; all aspects of it. I love the idea of writing but I just don't feel like I could really do it. I didn't even graduate from school.

Jennifer Lawrence

#93. You will learn more by walking from Canada to Guatemala than you will ever learn in film school.

Werner Herzog

#94. Growing up in Hollywood meant there were a lot of film stars' kids at my school - but no conspicuous wealth. It wasn't cool to show off that you had money.

Zooey Deschanel

#95. I just decided to make a movie. I had no training, no film school, but I had been to a lot of movies.

Michael Moore

#96. Whatever I was able to do with those experiences certainly contribute to whatever I'm able to do as a director. The corruption in that is that most of what I acted in the last 10 years was to steal film school time from these guys. Those were the people I thought I could learn from as a director.

Sean Penn

#97. I learned how to direct by being in the trenches of movies. Getting to be a student from the inside looking out, and if you're a respectful observer you can sponge lots of information. That was my film school.

Lake Bell

#98. I had been accepted to film school, but my parents couldn't afford it, and yet they made too much money for me to get a scholarship.

Ryan Murphy

#99. I never studied anything about film technique in school. Eventually, I realized that cinema and theater are not so different: from the gut to the heart to the head of a character is the same journey for both.

Ralph Fiennes

#100. I always wanted to be a feature filmmaker and tried to treat that experience as some sort of elite film school where I could learn the craft, and got paid to learn the craft.

Mark Romanek