Steven Bauer Quotes

When we did Wayne's World, it was 14 million dollars and they didn't bug us too much because they just thought it was some little movie that nobody was ever going to see. We showed them.

My good films were independent and my bad films were not.

I'd just as soon do a big-budget movie as an independent one.

A film like 'Good Night And Good Luck,' you make that for $7 million because you know it's a black-and-white film, and it's not an easy sell. If you make it for $7 million, then everybody can have a chance to make a little bit of money, and you get to make the film you want to make.

That's why I'm really trying to produce my own stuff. This film was so good, because I produced it myself, and developed it, and made it with New Line, which is a smaller studio, so I was in control of a lot of stuff that I wasn't in control of for my other films.

Actors dread working with studios because they dictate what you do in a way that independent movies can't.

When we do a movie with the studios, they wouldn't be asking us to do it, I don't think, if it was a movie they wanted to get into themselves. What you see is what you get with us, so they let us do what we want to do.

As a filmmaker, one tends to want to evolve evermore towards a place of independence.

I became a producer because nobody was ready to finance my films.

I could never work in that kind of commercial environment where the stars have a lot to say, where the producers kind of push you around and tell you who to cast and who not to cast. I'm just not interested in that at all.

Before I made 'Sweetback,' I had a three-picture deal with Columbia and enough juice, if I was real clever with it, to proclaim that I wanted to do an independent film.

A big part of the equation for 'Winter's Bone' was making it for so little that we owe nobody. We had a guaranteed loan and were able to pay it back.

I don't choose to make low-budget films. But that is the reality of surviving in the Japanese film industry. However, the trade off is, since we're working on small budgets, we have freedom. You can't buy this freedom with money. With this freedom, I think there are an infinite number of possibilities.

Maybe I'll just write books. I'd like to make another movie, but I don't want to go back and [do] what they want you to do, to make it for a million dollars. I did that. I don't need a lot, but I need what I used to get, and they don't give you that anymore.

There's something different about an indie film than a TV show that has a huge infrastructure that's in place already for you - at least financially and in terms of distribution. Whereas an indie film is just a total dare.

I very much enjoy my freedom creatively but I also would love to make one of those big Hollywood films that costs a lot of money and has a lot of people running around with cell phones and all that insanity.

I enjoy doing independent films more, only because there's more freedom. There's not as many cooks tampering with what you are trying to do.

As soon as you start making a film that's expensive then the studio wants total control over all elements of it because they want to get all their money back. If you make a smaller film you can try a lot more things because you can have control over it and not just be a hired director. The lower the budget the more freedom you have.

My last film as director, the National Award winning 'Zakhm,' barely managed to break even. So why should I listen to so-called sensibilities of a handful of critics?

It is difficult to make movies on your own terms and also to make a film and convince somebody to have faith in it.

Making independent films is liberating. It eliminates self-censorship, which mainstream films are infected with due to commercial priorities.

Doing your first film, it's very important that it's a commercial success, because that gives you a couple times to experiment until you have to hit the jackpot again.

I'm fortunate enough to act in a TV show that makes me a lot of money so I can pay for my own movies. I don't have to wait for anybody and that's more of what I like doing. But I still think that you don't have to be connected in the industry to make your movie. You just have to write something that is meant to be made cheaply.

I don't want to become an ivory tower filmmaker. That sounds peculiar, but I want to be a mainstream filmmaker. I want the largest possible audience that I can find - but, of course, on my terms.

I don't mind that if I ever star in movies, they'll likely be mine. That's okay, because my great role models - Woody Allen, even Tyler Perry, who is actually one of my role models, even if that seems kind of strange - they do that themselves. And it's great. They build empires, and they're known as having their own voice. I think it's 20 times more fun to act on a set where I feel the freedom to change the dialogue.