Directing Career Quotes

Growing up the son of a director has made me very aware of the various turns that a directing career can take. Sometimes your films turn out exactly as you want. Sometimes they don't. I spent a lot of my childhood on sets. I think as a joke, my father gave me a line of dialogue in each of his films during the worst moments of my puberty.

Maybe at 55, I would like to direct. I will go the Angelina Jolie way.

Ultimately, I want to direct a movie, so that's another thing, too, where I wonder what that will look like and how will I be able to manage.

I haven't directed a film since 'Appaloosa,' and I've been looking for something because I love the directing thing.

My father Kamran Khan was a successful producer, director and actor in B-grade films.

It's funny because I've resisted acting as a career for most of my life. But both my parents told me if I ever want to direct, I should act first because no director should direct until they know what it's like to be in the actor's shoes.

I first came to cinema as a passionate filmgoer, when I was a child. Then, when I was a very young man, I became a film critic precisely because of my knowledge of cinema. I did better than others because of this. Then I moved on to screenwriting. I wrote a film with Sergio Leone, 'Once Upon a Time in the West.' And then I moved to directing.

For me, there was never an end game for becoming a director.

I've been a writer for years, but it was mainly as a function of trying to be a director, so I just got work as a writer. I want to keep directing.

I'd love to be a filmmaker and look back and be like, 'Ah, man, we were part of that whole '80s video nasty thing!'

I love directing. It's something I started doing in theatre when I was in university in Chicago and I started a theatre company right out of college and was directing for many years.

I was already interested in directing when I was very young. I knew that was something I was going to be doing.

I have a freedom that's incredibly valuable. Obviously my freedom is far smaller in scale than people like Zemeckis and Spielberg have here. But it's comparable. I can dream up a project, develop it, make it, control it, release it.

I've been directing for 25 years almost, and I've only directed nine films in that time because I like to be careful.

I directed before I was even in television; I directed in the theatre for seven years, so that was my trade anyway. But in the UK, I've given up any hope of being considered a director.

I have been trying to retire to the back of the camera for quite a few years, and in 1970, when I first started directing, I said, 'If I could pull this off, I can some day move to the back of the camera and stay there.'

Directing is literally what I've always wanted to do, ever since I was a kid. So I love the career I've built behind the camera.

I will direct one day, but I have a feeling that it will be very limited.

I don't see myself doing television, but I do see myself directing.

Directing is not a job. It's more like a career. Which is great!

After the Oscar for 'Shampoo,' I had a sense, even as I was walking up to get it, that this was the height of where I was going to go as an actress. And I felt that now was the time, if I wanted a longer life in the arts, that I had to jump from acting to directing.

I love writing. Given a choice, after directing for all these years, and if given an army of talented directors, I would not direct at all.

They've said I want to direct pictures. I couldn't direct traffic.

I'd like to work more as a director. It's distracting being an actor, because - there's a lot of reasons. You find out you're going to work about six months before you start shooting, and then there's prep and there's post afterward, and there's stuff to do, and then suddenly you've gone a year without directing. There's a part of me that has to not be tempted by that in order to commit more to the directing. Honestly, the big reason for me to act is to observe other directors and learn from them. That seems to be the biggest draw.

I'm happy directing films. On television, the direction takes your entire life away.