Alan Tudyk Quotes

I make movies that I enjoy making and tell stories that I want to see, so it’s hard. You never reverse engineer those things and go, “What would appeal to this or that?” Even if I tried, I don’t know. I’m an all-American kid.

However happy the director is, I have to be okay with it. I'm pretty strict with myself, about throwing things out or trying to be true to whatever the situation dictates.

There's a reason why actors are always dying to work with the Coens. They just set the stage for you to do their best work.

I don't have this feeling like, 'Oh, I want to live in the United States and make movies and become famous just because the money is here.' I like to make movies that tell stories that I care about.

Sometimes, there's a preconceived notion of how a scene or how a work should be delivered. And I see young performers sometimes try and deliver that, and it's not really true to their voice or who they are.

It's difficult to find a movie that feels true to itself. You feel the hand of Hollywood, the moviemaking by committee, on everything.

I find that all great directors, and I would include Ben Affleck and Clint Eastwood in that, they have great confidence. And with great confidence comes great freedom for the actor.

The most honest form of filmmaking is to make a film for yourself.

You have to make films you feel strongly about. And then hope you can find the audience.

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

I think actors do make really, really wonderful directors.

We just did a few takes of a song and just picked the best one. It was real organic and genuine.

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?'

You hear it said time and time again by successful directors: You have to make a movie for yourself. Don't make it for anyone else.

I wanted to create a body of work that I was proud of. It's come from honesty and integrity, without forcing anything from myself, the ideas had to come instinctively and organically. Whether that translates to people in that way, it's kind of out of my hands now.

Every time I decide not to do a commercial film, a masala film, I'm closer to myself.

Oh, everything we did was completely organic - from the way we looked to the way we sounded, the way we played - everything.

There are so many directors who don't like any kind of interaction on set except for producers. I am the opposite.

An awful lot of filmmaking and playmaking is taken over by marketers and publicists, who set about to tell people what to think. And people feel safer that way. But it's not safe, and the whole wonderful thing that cinema and filmmakers can contribute is to go into the not-safe land of real life.

Therefore, when you see the end result, it's difficult to see who's the director, me or them. Ultimately, everything belongs to the actors - we just manage the situation.

There's no point in it unless it's a story that you really want to tell. It's a nebulous job. Unless you're doing it well, you're not doing anything. And there are a few of those. It's perfectly possible to be a passenger on a film set because if somebody else has written it, you can make nothing of that role and that's exactly what bad directors do.

I like to let the actors work the way they want to.

I love films. I love fiction films, too. I do. I love making them, but it has to be the right one. Hopefully, I'll never become a director for hire. It's horrible to make a film that you're not really interested in.

Having seen Justin's work on Bleak House, I knew that he'd be incredibly well prepared and interesting stylistically for this and that was definitely the case. It's very liberating for actors - and I can only speak for myself here - but he creates a very loose environment and he's a great collaborator.

Do not set out to write with your eyes on the box office. It can't be done.