Harland Williams Quotes

I believe in creative control. No matter what anyone makes, they should have control over it.

But at the same time, never having final cut before, I really learned an interesting thing for any studio executive who is reading this: that if a director has final cut, it's actually easier and more interesting to listen to notes.

In the theatre you can change things ever so slightly; it's an organic thing. Whereas in film you only have that chance on the day, and you have no control over it at all.

I'm not jealous, and I'm not possessive, and I'm not controlling.

I don't have to worry about how my movies sell because I'm not the guy in front.

There is some information that an actor doesn't need, and that's okay. I can't control everything. I don't want to control everything. Sometimes, you want to control everything, and you want to know the size of the lens and stuff like that. I am so relaxed as an actor because I don't want to control everything. I just want to control my part.

I'm always looking for a reason to say no when I'm approached about a big studio tentpole because your fear is will you be consumed into the anonymous machine, and it will suck out any specificity and point of view that you might hope to express.

Sometimes directors will hire you and say, 'Oh, we love your work.' And then they start to tell you how to do it. I say, 'Hey, man, back off. You hired me to do it. Let me do it.'

I'll still make movies for studios, but my editing process will be much further removed from the studio system. Because I don't understand it. I don't understand the whole testing-numbers thing. It is not how I want to make movies. So if that's how they do it, then I don't think I want to do it.

When you have somebody writing or acting for you, you have to be free to have them hate you so you can get your ideas across without worrying.

The Internet has allowed a lot of access - people feel entitled to change the ending of games, for example. So there are a lot more voices coming at you all the time, which I think has its effect on creative decision making and possibly makes people more afraid to take risks.

I know that it's axiomatic in the film industry that you're not supposed to let the novelist develop their own story. Well, first of all, that's kind of up to the novelist - because they don't have to sell it. But also, I don't believe it. It's about trust.

I need to have a great deal of control and the ability to share my control with my collaborators and grant them the freedom and the quality of work I think these people deserve. If I don't have those elements, I walk away.

I've avoided situations where I wouldn't have creative freedom.

As a freelance artist, you have to please somebody instead of just making music. But when the employer trusts and leans on you to determine what is right for a scene or feeling, that's ideal.

I would never tie in creative with a talent's contract. To me, that is insanity. Creative needs change, talents evolve or not, and to be locked in to a talent having the ability to not run the plays that the team dictates is not smart business.

Being left makes you doubt your ability to keep people, even friends.

I'm considered to some degree a successful director working in Hollywood, making films my way but using studio financing. But with almost every single one, I get praised up the wazoo by people who never would have financed the films. It's: "Gee, this movie is so new and different - what do you want to do next?" "This." "Oh, that's too new and different."

I don't micromanage the interiors. People ask me to and I say no. I don't want to control everything.

I don't like to tell people what format they can get things in, or say, "I'm only going to release this on vinyl and nothing else. You have to come to my world." I don't like to say that to people either. But, I do think there's a loss of romance.

As a writer you're holding a dog. You let the dog run about. But you finally can pull him back. Finally, I'm in control. But the great excitement is to see what happens if you let the whole thing go. And the dog or the character really runs about, bites everyone in sight, jumps up trees, falls into lakes, gets wet, and you let that happen. That's the excitement of writing plays-to allow the thing to be free but still hold the final leash.

I found collaboration to be a terrible thing in Hollywood because there are so many people involved you have to make a thousand little compromises to every project and every single scene is a committee decision. It's maddening. But with comics you've got an artist and you've got a writer.

One of the things that's funniest about the entertainment industry and comedy is that people go 'Oh, you're great, but I don't know what to do with you.' The great thing about the Internet is that nobody has to figure out what to do with you. You can figure out what to do with you, and you can say, 'I made this thing, and I'm going to put it out, and now if people want to come see me and buy things from me they can.'

Writers do the self-censoring before they even get to the studio executive, because they know the film will not run that gauntlet. They, because they want to get their films made, they censor it.

The master who fears the choices his people will make enough to take those choices away isn't worth serving.