Quotes on Directors

Well, in the theater, I think you're actually more responsible for what is going on onstage as a director than you are in film.

I am a typed director. If I made Cinderella, the audience would immediately be looking for a body in the coach.

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.

All I need to make a comedy is a park, a policeman and a pretty girl.

It's possible for me to make a bad movie out of a good script, but I can't make a good movie from a bad script.

The entire universe is God's cosmic motion picture, and that individuals are merely actors in the divine play who change roles through reincarnation; mankind's deep suffering is rooted in identifying too closely with one's current role, rather than with the movie's director, or God.

Safety from external danger is the most powerful director of national conduct. To be more safe, [nations] at length become willing to run the risk of being less free.

Become the director, producer, choreographer of your own story

I have only one rule in acting - trust the director and give him heart and soul.

Performers are so vulnerable. They're frightened of humiliation, sure their work will be crap. I try to make an environment where it's warm, where it's OK to fail - a kind of home, I suppose.

The script is what you`ve dreamed up - this is what it should be. The film is what you end up with.

You don’t want to ask after the health of anyone, if you’re a funeral director. They think maybe you’re scouting for business.

A film is - or should be - more like music than like fiction. It should be a progression of moods and feelings. The theme, what's behind the emotion, the meaning, all that comes later.

All directors are storytellers, so the motivation was to tell the story I wanted to tell. That's what I love.

Tragedy is a close-up; comedy, a long shot.

And I may often question choices I make as a producer. But I've never questioned the choices I make as a director.

Casting sometimes is fate and destiny more than skill and talent, from a director's point of view.

I'm ex-player, ex-technical director, ex-coach, ex-manager, ex-honorary president. A nice list that once again shows that everything comes to an end.

To deny women directors, as I suspect is happening in the States, is to deny the feminine vision.

I think of Ray Harryhausen's work - I knew his name before I knew any actor or director's names. His films had an impact on me very early on, probably even more than Disney. I think that's what made me interested in animation: His work.

I think producers are more interested in backing concepts than directors and writers. I don't think that's the right way of making a decision about whether you're going to back a film or not.