Scott Rudin Quotes

With a film, I do my best to understand the author's intentions and try to bring the characters to life.

I always used to say, as a director, that I could make anybody good in a movie if you found the right part. It all comes down to casting.

As the director, I try to go in and know as much as I can about the material. I really try to go in and understand what all the characters are about, what the movie's going to look like.

I worked in casting for about five years before I became a director, and that taught me a huge amount because you never actually will see the character walk through the door - and if you do, then you have to be slightly suspicious of that.

I don't normally think of a specific actor. I concentrate on the character, and then when we get into pre-production, that's how names come up.

The way I work is I like to immerse myself in the world of the film and in the character's lives, and then from that, I get a lot of ideas of how the film could be made, how it could be told.

Any script, even like The Founder, if it's something that I imagine myself playing this character or that character - any of the characters, basically - how do we flesh these characters out to be good enough to have amazing actors that come in that make it really difficult for them to say no? Even though I'm not right for any of those parts, that's just kind of how we go about it.

Yet as a director, I don't feel you have to identify with your characters as a requirement to make a movie.

When you have a script, and you're discussing what it can be, and who going to play what role, that's a kind of like a fantasy football game. You can imagine these different dream teams interpreting these characters that only exist in your head.

I never have particular actors planned when I'm in the process of writing.

As a director, it is important to understand the actor's process.

I never write with an actor in mind - never.

The truth is that filmmaking is not really an actor's medium; it's really a director's medium, so all I can really control is the character that I'm playing. So I try to look for characters that are interesting and engaging and different than what I've done before and hopefully it becomes a good movie.

But a writer's contribution is literary and a film is not literary. When you take that stuff off the page, and cast the people who are going to fit into those roles, that's what being a director is.

Why do I use the same actors in different movies? One of the things I really stress in casting is I need to find someone who is suitable for the role in the movie. That's always the main reason.

On a very small scale, I kind of understand why the directors that I work with do certain things. I don't consider myself an incredible director. I'm not ready to do movies by any means. But, I feel like I can be a better actress now that I've been on the other side and kind of understand the process and more of the technical aspects of it.

I find all of my performances come down to mathematics in a sense - how do you approach the problem of this character? Sometimes I crack that problem, sometimes I don't.

As a director, it became important to hear that specific role read by that specific actor, and you hear the chemistry, or you don't hear the chemistry. So I'm not so bothered by the audition process anymore; in fact, I use it. It's a time for the actor to actually get to the know the director and the producers a little bit, too.

A director should cast a person who fits into their script.

Casting is storytelling.

If a film is being made by an intelligent director, they're going to cast the right guy.

The first thing I look at with a project isn't who's directing, whether it's a big film; it's the character and whether I want to tell her story.

I don't know acting, but I choose good stories and portray emotions according to the story.

I definitely have to know every detail of a script and analyse its potential before I think further because if the director is the captain, then the script is the ship.

Usually, I write my scripts first, then think of the actors, or I have a reference of someone.