Explore Quotes on Directors

I always think that a director who knows about the technical side, but cares about the acting performances and casting as well, is ahead of the game.

We have a game we play when we’re waiting for tables in restaurants, where you have to write the five things that describe yourself on a piece of paper. When I was [in my twenties], I would have put: ambitious, Wellesley graduate, daughter, Democrat, single. Ten years later not one of those five things turned up on my list. I was: journalist, feminist, New Yorker, divorced, funny. Today not one of those five things turns up in my list: writer, director, mother, sister, happy.

I'm always being told by directors that I add chemistry to scenes, so I mean how difficult could it be?

When you're the director and the writer, you never have to remember your lines, and there's no one to call you on it. On Garden State I did different lines on every take, just making crap up. And it was great each time.

My job as an actor has inspired generations of children to become doctors. My job as a writer has opened up the minds of millions. My job as a director has produced masterpieces that will be taught in film school for ages.

I mean, I understand that Scrubs was my big break, but sooner or later you have to move on. I've already directed a movie, which received very good reviews, so it just seems much more important to me now. I feel that in order to better foster my creativity as an actor and director at this point, I need to be surrounded by other talented, artistic individuals, instead of just goofy comedians.

I mean, I'm a writer, actor, AND director. Not to rock the boat or anything, but compare that to a carpenter and, in the end, who is the better man?

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.

If someone suddenly lost their director the day before shooting and wanted me to step in, I'd be willing to. But I'd do brain surgery the same way. I'm always up for something new.

I write music to please myself. Hopefully the director's enjoying it too.

Carefully execute every instruction given to you by the director, producer, and studio. But that would be a life not worth living.

When I die and go to hell, the devil is going to make me the marketing director for a cola company. I’ll be in charge of trying to sell a product that no one needs, is identical to its competition, and can’t be sold on its merits. I’d be competing head-on in the cola wars, on price, distribution, advertising, and promotion, which would indeed be hell for me. Remember, I’m the kid who couldn’t play competitive games. I’d much rather design and sell products so good and unique that they have no competition.

I was six years old when I saw my first Godard movie, eight when I first experienced Bergman. I wanted to be a director when I was fourteen.

As a writer and a director, I simply don't have the time I need to write and prep the movie I would have wanted to make because of the fixed and tight production schedule.

Egotism is not a good quality. It's not something to be admired or even tolerated. It wouldn't be tolerated in a field commander and it shouldn't be tolerated in a movie director.

A lot of directors don't know what they want to do. Every director I've seen that was a good director that I've admired knew exactly what he wanted to do. They didn't sit there and think about it.

Plan B is really a little garage band of three people, and our mandate has been to help get difficult material, that might not otherwise get made, to the screen and to work with directors we respect.

If you have a script that's not great, if you have a great director, you can make a great movie, but if you have a great script with a director who's not good, never are you going to have a good movie.

I love having a master. I have no problem serving my director. That's my job. I want to make them happy.

After Star Trek, I was with the top agencies, but producers and directors did not know what to do with me.

I got into a brawl one night in a saloon in Greenwich Village. Elia Kazan, a great director, saw me put out a couple of hecklers and figures there was some Big Daddy in me, just lyin' dormant. And out it came. People still do call me Big Daddy, but to me, inside, I'm no Big Daddy at all.