Guillermo del Toro Quotes

As a director, I'm not the one animating every frame, every shot. I'm moving around like a surgeon on rounds, or a farmer checking in on all the plants being grown, pruning and adjusting. For me, it's a very exciting job.

I usually don't say anything to the actors. It works better for me because when they come to the set, they are at the same time scared and excited because they are not well aware of what will happen.

I do think that's so much a part of what being a director is - in working with actors - to really try and be sensitive to what each actor needs to get to where he wants to be.

The happiest moments for me, creatively, are doing readings of a play around a table where there's no audience.

I think acting really helps as a director. It's just no question, because you totally understand the acting process.

If I am looking at my work as an actor after having directed, I'm able to look at things in a much more technical way. There's no question about that.

I am a really writer-oriented actor.

One of the exciting and enjoyable aspects of acting is being in the environment with another actor.

I approach directing from an actor's standpoint.

You have to get it in your brain that you don't belong to yourself as an actor, but that you belong to the director who creates the character.

Oliver Stone's strategy is to unnerve the actors so as to make them alert and alive.

All actors bring something unexpected to the role because they have to translate what's on the page and make a real character out of the black-and-white text that's there in the script.

I love actors. I love working with actors. I really enjoy the process. I love having those in-depth discussions about the interior of their character, and actors really love to discuss that, too. I could talk about that for days with them. They love that, and I love that.

I love working with actors, and it's all been based on my being trained in the theater.

Actors are such wonderful creatures and such wonderful instruments. It's always different on the page or in my head. I hear it differently. I see it differently. And then, you give it to an actor, and it comes alive in a way that you didn't expect.

I think every actor would probably say that it's always a collaboration. And if you ask directors, they'll tell you that they expect the actors to bring something. They don't want to be thinking for everybody.

I've been largely an improvisational actor for most of my career, except for when I've worked with the Coen brothers.

Scorsese is a fan of improv and is always pushing actors to think up something that would make the scene more fun. He loves any idea that helps the scene be alive.

Whenever you have a role where you don't get to know anything about the character, you have to invent it yourself. You have to feel like it came from somewhere.

Both 'Udaan' and 'Lootera' were largely rehearsed. With 'Trapped,' I left room for improvisation.

I don't enter into particulars with [Ennio Morricone]. I give him the feeling and the suggestions of the characters.

I don't think of an actor. I think in the character, and then I search for the actor. Usually I'm thinking without names, because they will change my idea. No big egos. If I want egos - just mine. That is enough.

When you're directing, I feel like I'm playing all the parts, without the make-up. I really get into the heads of the characters.

I'm not a method actor, I don't write my character's history or all those kinds of things. I'm more about the 90 percent of the brain that is subconscious. I like to just pick certain pieces, let it soak in, and then let it kind of emerge out.

I don't have very complete scripts for my films. I have a general outline and a character in my mind, and I make no notes until I find the character who's in my mind in reality.