James D'arcy Quotes

Good directing is about getting the performance to be just what's right for the movie.

It was really an experience, being my first time directing a movie. The scenes that I was in, Brooke really directed me all the time. And the scenes that both of us were in, Brooke directed those. Come to think of it, Brooke directed most of the scenes.

Woody Allen, when we did Vicky Cristina Barcelona, said to Rebecca Hall, "Do it one time happy, one time sad, and one time indifferent, as I won't know where you should be until I'm editing this, in terms of your emotions."

There's a lot of laughing on a horror movie set. They're magical in that way.

Usually I like to make my movies from start to finish in chronological order. As a filmmaker it lets me be able to direct my actors and tell them where exactly they are and go with progression.

You often have a great director who's like, "Well, actually I don't even want to reveal you until the end of this scene" or something like that and it totally changes everything that you thought it was going to be.

John Huston was the kind of director that totally left you alone. Not every actor always does it right, every time, but most of the time he was re-directing someone. He was making tight adjustments, and not even in terms of interpretation because he knew that by the time that the character had been filmed... well, he got it right when he cast you.

Every director is different and they all have different styles. I've worked with directors who were very specific and they gave a lot of direction. The one thing about Michael [Haneke]that I think is interesting is that he really has a reason for everything he's asking you. If you challenge it, he is open for discussion but he has a clear idea of what he wants with reasons why.

Movies are not scripts - movies are films; they're not books, they're not the theatre. It's a completely different discipline, it exists on its own. I would say that the beauty of it is it's not the theatre, it's not done over again. It's done in bits and pieces. Things are happening which you can't get again. I forbid anyone to say "Cut", the soundman, the operator, or whatever.

I love the variety of films. In theater, you go into a room and the director runs the room, so you all work to his or her method. On film, if an actor or an actress is in for a day or two, the director has to get out of that actor what they need, so they have to change and adapt to that actor's technique.

Deleted scenes are like in a middle gray zone. It's like, well, they're deleted because they're not good or you lost the battle and you couldn't put them in the movie.

I never really understood how movies were made, because it was such a technical accomplishment.

It makes you feel good when a movie works. Usually when I see an old movie I've made, I say to myself, 'Oh God, why did I do this?' and 'Why didn't I change that?' and things like that.

Probably the hardest thing to do was the beginning of the movie ["300"], I think, when we were in Sparta and all that - just getting in the groove.

What's amazing about doing movies, compared to television, there's an ending you can see. There's an enthusiasm to it.

Shooting at Quentin Tarantino movie was like a masterclass in directing. Although I went back literally right into rehearsal, started shooting... while I was doing it I had to write my Grindhouse trailer and I added two days of shooting. My brother was producing Hostel and the Grindhouse trailer and I was like: "Gabe, just figure this out!"

If you're producing a movie you're involved in every aspect of the movie and that can be daunting and then going and doing a movie where you're just an actor for hire, and you can kind of sit back and giggle where you can see somebody sitting over there wasting time and wasting money.

Working on "Pieces of April" with Peter Hedges at a young age was really very powerful. It was a different kind of work. We shot that in 10 days and Peter was right there with us, right next to the camera. It was very grounded and I really liked working that way. I liked the way he directed us.

I have a great respect for actors like Clint Eastwood, who's a wonderful director. I think two pictures that I directed were not successful, so I decided not to make any more.

Making a movie is like a stagecoach ride through the Old West: at first you wish for a pleasant trip, and after a while you just hope you reach your destination.

I became really aware that when you're making a movie, you're making it three times. You're making it when you're writing it. You're making it when you're shooting it. And then you're remaking it again when you're editing it.

As the acting class was going on, I just realized I just knew more about cinema than the other people in the class. I cared about cinema and they cared about themselves. But two, was actually at a certain point I just realized that I love movies too much to simply appear in them. I wanted the movies to be my movies.

To me, the big difference is when you yell cut and then you have to walk over there and deliver a note, it gives it much more import as opposed to "Hey, try that." It's just much more intimate, I think.

Before I go off and direct a movie, I always look at four films. They tend to be The Seven Samurai, Lawrence Of Arabia, It's A Wonderful Life and The Searchers.

[on his use of tracking shots throughout his 50-year career] There's always a certain amount of camera improvisation.