Jim Lee Quotes

What matters to me as a creative artist is the credibility of the production house, the honesty in the script, and the way the filmmaker has conceived the characters in the narrative.

I think it's important that a director be able to know his characters inside and out.

I think you've got to talk to the director, see the director's films and recognise that it's important that the work fits right in and see if as part of the movie.

I'm very opinionated, and when you're put in a position where you're getting the storylines that are not necessarily what's cranking at the back of your mind, or digging at the potential of your character and you have to sit on your hands, that's frustrating.

As a director, the biggest job is to discern the imperfections in emotional tone and then view it in the global picture of what you're trying to do, if that makes sense. It's a rhythm, like music is a rhythm or composition and art is a rhythm. Dialogue is a rhythm as well.

I really want to work in a movie with Quentin Tarantino. I think he makes fantastic movies. I love people that create a different reality for the actors to live in.

Every actress has a line she'll draw, where she'll say, 'This I will do and this I won't.' For me, everything has to be important to the story and the director has to be able to tell me why.

I loved being in Close Encounters, just to watch Steven Spielberg working was exciting.

It's only the filmmaker. The script is really, really second. And there's a huge gap between filmmaker and script for me. I almost don't care about the story that they're telling; I really only care about who wants to tell it.

Directing is a very long process, and I have to be in love with it if I want to give up two years of my life and live with it from beginning to end!

I would really love to direct one day. I think there are certain actors who love the character and the performance and that's all they want to be a part of.

I approach film no differently than I approach a role. I want to make sure the movie is right, the characters are right, I can really bring something to it as a visionary, a storyteller. It's great to point a camera, but can you tell a story?

I'm a fan of characters wherever they come from. Truth be told, I wasn't a big comic book fan growing up. Maybe that helps me bring a fresh perspective to things because I'm not trying to match anything that's been done in the past.

What I notice about people who are gifted in filmmaking is that they're great thinkers. They engage with big ideas and they engage with people.

I am the product of Denny O'Neil in many ways, I carry forth a lot of what Denny instilled in me.

Hats off to Julian and Johnny, the producers, for sticking to their guns with the five-season story arc of 'Merlin'. It would have been too easy to give in to demand and stretch the show on beyond their original plan because of its incredible success.

It's good to please the network, but you really just have to tell the stories you want to tell, and if you try to please other people, it ends up starting to water stuff down. Those decisions we have to make are hard, but we usually just err on the side of 'What would we want to see?'

For me, the most important thing is the writing - and certainly the director. But if the writing isn't there, it doesn't matter who the director is!

In terms of directing a feature, I'd want the story to be right - you know, it's a year of your life, and you have to be focused on one thing, so I want it to be a story that I really, really care about and will enjoy making.

I'm a comic book writer, so I work with a lot of artists. Sometimes, you get art back, and you're like, 'Oh, no.' Sometimes, you get art back and you're like, 'That's exactly what I imagined in my head,' and you're happy about that.

I would remake 'Club Paradise.' I thought the story was cool, the setting was great. Everything lined up, except I wrote it for Bill Murray and John Cleese.

One of the jobs of a director is to ask questions. One of the jobs of the director is to stand in for the audience until they get there.

I want to make a movie where people are, like, 'Whoa.'

'Raging Bull' was just a dream to work on, but it took a lot of work to get all those fights to work right and incorporate them properly into the story.

As a director, when you embrace a project, you try to understand as much as you can about its world, and you do that by embracing and engaging with people who are in that world. Then it's down to your best instincts, which is what most directing is about anyway.