Jane Birkin Quotes

Film work can be very interesting, but it also can be awfully boring because who creates the film? The actors? No. It is the director. It's his piece of work.

I got a lot of energy from directing the film 'Ladies In Lavender.' You wonder if you have the stamina because as an actor you can lounge around the trailer during the scenes you're not in, but as a director, you're there from first thing in the morning to last thing at night every day of the week. I found it incredibly energising.

I knew that I'd end up directing because I'm so hands-on with my films.

Once you turn on the camera, making a movie is making a movie. I don't care if it's $9 million dollars or $50 million dollars. You have bigger toys, bigger set, actors who are better paid, but once you turn on the camera, it's director and performance, and I don't find a big difference.

I think you cannot make films without choosing everything.

I love being on set, because I've basically grown up on a set. And now I love to contribute as a director and help steer the ship, if you will.

Making a movie and not directing the little moments is like drinking a soda and leaving the little slurp puddle for someone else.

Director of any film is very important, and an actor has to leave himself in his hands to mould.

Going to directing wasn't a reaction away from acting as much as it was a move towards something I always wanted to do. Ever since I was a kid, I was interested in the camera and how it worked and why one director would place it in this part of the room and then another would place it in that part of the room.

I love the process of making a movie so much as an actor that I can only imagine I would love the process of being the director.

Of course there are some actors that are better than others and performances that are better than others, but they're always embedded in the greater film. They are mediated through the work of so many other people: the director directs, the lighter sets the scene, the editors edit, the music gets put to it.

I hope to direct at some point, but I don't feel the pressure to rush it. I want to really know what it is that I'm doing.

My job is to kind of nudge them. Who said it, where, like, '90% of the job is casting,' so all I do is try to come to set and focus on getting all the best shots to cover the story; that's really it.

A director should be in a position where he is only directing. On the sets, he is only looking at the performances, thinking 'How I am going to shoot this?'

I want to be the person who eventually doesn't have to be in front of the camera. I can be behind the camera and really change things cinematically, and this is giving me an opportunity to do something behind the camera, which I really want to maximize.

In the old days when I first was coming up, you would turn up on set in the morning with your coffee, script, and hangover and you would figure out what you were going to do with the day and how you were going to play the scenes. You would rehearse and then invite the crew in to watch the actors go through the scenes. The actors would go away to makeup and costume and the director and the DP would work out how they were going to cover what the actors had just done.

The timing for directing is usually because it takes that long to develop a piece and then do pre-production and then post-production. It takes at least a couple of years. I prefer directing to doing other things. Directing and writing seem to be infinitely more creative

I think coming off of "Blame", I've been talking a lot about directing. It's something that I really love and connect with. I truly consider it what I was born to do. That kind of loops in with filmmaking on the whole, because when you create something, you're also wearing a lot more hats than just director. At the same time, I also think acting is something that's very powerful in my life.

I'm focusing on my efforts behind the camera. I'm doing some producing and directing so that I can make projects for all of the amazing, talented actors and crew that I know.

I thought of myself as part of the general filmmaking effort. And as my scope broadened, I began to think about directing. I wanted to be the guy who got to say whether the dress is red or blue.

A writer needs a pen, an artist needs a brush, but a filmmaker needs an army.

To shoot a film is to organize an entire universe.

It's true that I don't think I'd be a good director. If I were a director, I'd try to hire the best people I could and then leave them alone. I don't know much about cameras or lighting, so I'd make sure that I had a really good cameraman who understood lenses and lighting, and I say to him, "This is the scene we have to shoot and this is what I think it should be, you go do it." Same with actors. But really, very good directors who know everything do basically the same thing. They hire you and then they leave you alone.

As an actor, I'm always playing solitary characters. But as a director, I'm always making ensemble movies, which focus on lots of people's lives and how they intertwine.

All the films I do, I write the scripts, I direct.