Sam Underwood Quotes

I didn't want to do the whole, get the hottest person thing. I wanted to make sure every record felt right.

It's a simple formula for me now, I don't play any song I don't want to play.

I'll do any kind of movie, as long as it's a good version of it.

I like to go from mainstream movies to more artsy films. I don't sign on for the money. Maybe I should, but I don't. There's always a good reason for doing something.

I am uncompromising to the point of huge dissension in the studio. And it's served me very well. My theory and my philosophy is, 'Compromise breeds mediocrity.' Obviously, you have to pick your battles, and the more success an artist has, the more they want to be involved in their own career, which is not necessarily a good thing.

You have to pick the stories that you want to be involved with and the end game is you'd like to be a part of a hit. But I think your moral obligation is to follow your own heart.

I am not interested in churning out a certain number of films every year. For me, it's about the quality of work. I think it's about following your instincts and doing a film for the right reason.

I'd rather make a show 100 people need to see, than a show that 1000 people want to see.

I don't want my reputation to take me over, I just want to be judged on my songs. I want people to come and see me because they want to, not because fashion dictates it.

Trying to guess what the (mass) audience wants and then trying to satisfy that is usually a bad recipe for getting something good.

I've not been a prolific poet, and it always seemed to me to be a bad idea to feel that you had to produce in order to get... credits. Production of a collection of poems every three years or every five years, or whatever, looks good, on paper. But it might not be good; it might be writing on a kind of automatic pilot.

As an artist, you want to make good stories and create good art; as a businessman, you want to make money and make sure the investors are happy. The two will always clash, unfortunately.

At the end of the day, I'm an artist. I may make work and decide to do something political, but it will come out of an artist's position. It won't come out of society telling me I have to. If I do, it's because I choose, as an artist, to do it.

It's just a campy blast. I just want to do as little as I can and make it good, and try not to sell out. I'm sure I will, but I'm just trying to postpone it.

I feel that if you made your writing too contrived to meet the market, it wouldn't be any good.

John Waters has certainly gotten to a place in his life where he doesn't do anything he doesn't want to do. He's always been that way, but at this point, he's greatly respected for it.

As a composer at a point where I can absolutely pick and choose what I want to do, I don't want to write about anybody I don't care about.

We didn't care if we were well-liked as long as the movies were good. We served the movie - that was our master at Miramax. In our second incarnation, the movie is still the master but we're getting the same results in more subtle ways.

We still have that same burn, to get that same kind of laughs. So whether the studio wants us to or not, we're going to do it. The money is just a byproduct of coming out with good stuff. Our whole thing is building that rapport with the audience.

I never choose a genre over quality. I never think, 'I want to do that,' and sacrifice the fact it might not be very good.

I like to do films that I would want to go see, basically. I'm not out to make a fast buck.

We're offered bigger, larger budget movies to produce a lot, and we don't do them. That's not to say there aren't exceptions: there are a few exceptions, but I try and stick by the rules that produce what I think is the highest quality, most innovative work and try and let the rules go that make us feel like we're retreading.

I would never tell someone else how to use their platform, because I think I'm much more comfortable allowing the work that I do to speak for itself.

If I'm going to put my image into something, I'll put my image into something that I actually feel like I'd like to do.

I don't necessarily go out and try to do something that's going to be just something that will please the audience. I'm not interested in doing something where I get the most people to come see the movie at the same time and they get the biggest explosion. I'm not interested in that.