Viola Davis Quotes

I get really excited when I see filmmakers make something that is subtle and feels real. It is really tough to do right.

I think it's much more radical to see and show things as they look instead of making them somehow subversive through alienation.

The film [Close Up] made itself, to a large extent. The characters involved were very real, I wasn't directing the actors so much as being directed by them. So it was a very particular film.

I am a director and I think actually they're not that different - dramas and docs aren't that different. When I'm doing a drama I'm trying to make things feel as believable and real as possible. The hair, the make-up, the costume, the design, you're trying to make it authentic. And when you've got a documentary it's all authentic, so what story are you going to tell and how do you make it dramatic and exciting? It's the same thing.

Would I show my body off if I was thinner? Probably not, because my body is mine. I think I remind everyone of themselves. I'm not saying everyone is my size, but it's relatable because I'm not perfect, and I think a lot of people are portrayed as perfect, unreachable and untouchable.

I don't want a picture to look like something it isn't. I want it to look like something it is.

Everything I do, I do it because it's me. At the end of the day, I only know how to be me. Everything is gonna be authentic, so I think, when it comes down to sayin' certain stuff in lyrics, or whatever the case may be, it's just me bein' me and me bein' honest.

There is no realism in American films. No realism, but something much better, great truth.

I encourage costumers to not focus on trends but to just wear whatever they feel like wearing because I think that's when a woman looks most attractive - when she's the most comfortable.

Yeah, once we decided to use that replacement animation, and the seams are a function of that animation, and other movies paint those out, we decided we wanted to keep the presence of the animation and the type of animation that it was rather than make it look polished. It created a kind of vulnerability, I think.

And that is all anyone can do, try to be honest about what he feels, what he's seen or thinks he's seen.

I'm a product of older filmmakers I guess, the past where you get to make movies and scenes are what they are. You know if you think about Scorsese back in the day when he was making Taxi Driver, or Coppola or Frankenheimer, Sidney Lumet, they're making films where you witness violence in a real way.

I love shooting with real things in the real world. I think it gives a level of drama, performance, and everything seems to rise to the occasion.

I think he [Tony LaRussa] legitimately believes what he says. I don't agree with him. But I think he's being as honest as he can be.

I think in fact that unless there is an organic link between the subjective impressions of the author and his objective representation of reality, he will not achieve even superficial credibility, let alone authenticity and inner truth.

I think that if you have to work very hard at dressing up and it makes you nervous or uptight, then you won't look very well because you won't be comfortable. I think it's much better to be comfortable and happy than well dressed.

You have to care about how good you are and how good you feel, but not about how good people think you are or how good people think you look.

The ones I love most are the people who the flaws show. I like doing characters that we see the total person. If people get afraid to show the flaws because they think, "Oh, then nobody will like them," then you end up with a lot of products, and everybody wants to be frigging heroic all the time - not what people are trapped in every day, like your skirt being in your panties after you walk out of the bathroom. Being human. Sometimes when people are drawn to your work, they're drawn because they recognize themselves or their loved ones or their neighbor in it.

I think it's important to just be a good, honest person and be true to who you are.

A lot of improvisation ends up being about just thinking outside of the box in the scene. It's not improvisation as much as it is quickness or making it real.

If I took perfect pictures all the time, the people standing in the room with me, or on the carpet, would think, 'What an actress! What a faker!' That thought embarrasses me so much that I look like s**t in half my photos, and I don't give a f***. What matters to me is that the people in the room leave and say, 'She was cool. She had a good time. She was honest.'

I find it terribly distracting in movies when people do accents, I must say, unless it's terribly serious and the story is rooted in South Africa and you're doing a South African accent. But in period movies I think nothing can be more distracting than people doing accents.

I don't think kids should think their lives have to be perfect or have a filter or the best angle or anything like that. I think it's important to see that everybody is human and everyone has their ups and downs.

Having someone who looks like us but thinks like them is worse than having no one at all.

Yeah, we have a lot of cringey moments, but that's what makes it authentic. I think for it not to be cringey, me and Kate would have to go into the edit suite, but then it would look over produced. We see it at the same time as everyone else.