Directing Experience Quotes

Making movies is a very different experience in a lot of ways. It's difficult when you're used to owning the copyright and having a landlord's possessory rights - I rent my plays to the companies that do them and, if I'm upset, I can pull the play. But the only two directors I've worked with are pretty great.

I did a good bit of episodic television directing, but directing a movie is so much more complicated.

I can count on one hand the directors who actually directed me.

If you ask me whether I can direct, I can. In fact, I have shot several songs, scenes and stunts. When certain directors of my movies were not able to be there for some reason and had asked me to help out, I have directed. But to helm an entire movie is a different art altogether.

I really never imagined that I could ever even direct anything, so 'Girls Like Girls' was co-directed.

I love to produce, and I've directed two short films.

I did a film that I shot in 24 hours that was self-financed for $5,000. It was a feature called Looking For Jimmy that I shot with a bunch of friends. I spent eight months editing because we had 24 hours of footage that made no sense and I learned a lot about directing while editing that film.

Storytelling is storytelling. You still play by the same narrative rules. The technology is completely different. I don't use one piece of technology that I used when I started directing.

When I started doing advertisements, I really enjoyed the whole process of shooting, and I realised that I could do the little bit of acting required quite easily. My directors also told me that I have a flair for acting and that I should polish it and try for films. Then I thought I probably had it in me - why not give it a shot?

I did a video with Mick Jagger down in Rio de Janeiro. But I played a video director, and that's the closest I've gotten to directing, except Bob Dylan came and had a few meetings with me about doing a video for him.

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.

Campbell [Scott] also directed me in a film with Hope Davis called Final. That was the first thing we did together, but I've known him for years.

To answer the question, though: I didn't always want to direct. I just liked the idea of it. If a friend was making a short and needed someone who knew screen direction, I would jump in. It would be horrible, but it led to a short, then another, and another. It was like student films.

I am fine working with debutant directors. They have a freshness about them.

I love being on set, because I've basically grown up on a set. And now I love to contribute as a director and help steer the ship, if you will.

I'm just beginning to direct. For all intents and purposes, this is the first time for me.

I reached a point where I'd watched enough directors do the job that I felt I understood it. And it's not that I'm a slow learner and it took me this long; I also was enjoying writing, and I still enjoy writing - I get tremendous satisfaction out of the writing end of it.

I never had a burning desire to direct. But Burt and I, on many pictures together, used to watch other directors and we realized that he or I could do a lot better.

I always think that the deal, once I do the script, sort of the experience I go through writing, which is everything you can imagine, but I always think it's the one thing I can do when I'm directing is say is that it's all about the actors, that I can say, 'We're all here to serve the actors.'

'Fast and Furious' is the only franchise that I've directed that I did not create from scratch. So it definitely was an eye-opening experience for me coming to that world. I had to be respectful of the roles that had been established by the filmmakers before me, and I was cool with that.

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 acted when I was young, but at 19, I had my own theater company where I acted but also directed. I also did some theater in Los Angeles. So I was always wanting to direct, even before I became an established actor.

I just enjoy the filmmaking side of things. I feel like when you're an actor, sometimes you're in other people's hands and they're in charge of your creative life. Whereas with my production company, I'm the one that gets to make those choices for how I'm gonna spend my time and what content I'm going to be creating. I definitely learn a lot, especially about acting, by producing and directing and seeing how it all comes together, and seeing the other side of things, appreciating what goes into pre- and post-production, and all those things you don't see when you're an actor.

I came from a background of directing behind-the-scenes documentaries.

Well I directed a few feature length things for HBO in the late eighties.