Not many people get that chance to have multiple studios wanting you to make a movie with them.
I want to have a great director, and also a great producer and co-stars. And there should be a tight script. After all, regardless of how the film turns out, I must have fun doing the film!
I only produce directors and movies that I have a lot in common with.
Picking projects, it's always director first and then script. Those two things are pretty much head-to-head.
I've never been difficult to anybody or with anybody on a picture. Especially when you're in that nice status of hierarchy of actors and actresses who get to approve directors. Because once you make that choice, it's my belief that the director's boss.
When you start a new project and they say, "Your director is going to be Joe Blo," you're hoping that Joe Blo will be the next Martin Scorsese, but it doesn't always work out that way.
I think around that time I met David [Gordon Green] or, well, we all met at Superbad and Judd [Apatow] said, 'I'm thinking about having him direct [ Knocked Up].' Sounded like a good idea.
I'm actually very snobbish about directors. I have to say no all the time. 'No' is the most powerful word in our business. You've got to protect yourself… To leave home, it's got to be worth leaving. It's got to be worth it.
I don't watch many films. I just make sure my directors are really good. I will work even with a debut director, but the one-hour narration of the script should be mind-blowing.
For me, every film is like the first picture. I am very choosy with the director and producer.
I look for a director with a script he likes a lot, but I'm probably after the directors more than anything.
I try to find the right director who won't compromise his or anyone else's integrity, and yet be political enough to give the studio what they want, yet put up a fight to maintain that integrity.
It just so happened that J.C.[Chandor] was a first-time feature director, and his script was exactly the kind of thing we were looking for.
I know I don't go looking for directors. I always wonder why they chose me.
I've done a few movies where I really liked the project, but I wasn't sure about the director, and I still did it and my instinct was right, in the beginning. Even though it was a good story, the guy still didn't really know what he was doing.
I had admired the way the producers of the 'Harry Potter' franchise had found David Yates, who ended up doing their four final movies, and he'd come from television.
I'm actually very snobbish about directors. I have to say 'no' all the time. 'No' is the most powerful word in our business. You've got to protect yourself.
With 'Family and Loyalty,' I didn't already have an idea for that video. So I called Fab Five Freddy. I wanted to get a director that I didn't have to explain Gang Starr to and he was with it.
I like movies that interest me and stories that interest me, I don't think about how much money it's gonna [cost] to make the movie, I don't think about any of that. I think about certain aspects like who's making the movie and who's gonna tell a story that I wanna be involved in, but I don't have that choice and I never have.
The most important decision you can make as a showrunner when you're doing a pilot is who's in it and who's directing it.
I've worked with some really great directors, and I'm really choosy about them because they're telling the story at the end of the day.
Really, I am entirely material driven. If a project appeals to me, I will try to find the right writer and director. And that may be someone I've worked with before, or it may not. It may be a woman, or it may not.
I can easily say "no" to a project if the script isn't great, but when the script is good, then I start asking the other questions. Who's going to direct it? Who's the creator? Who are the actors? When are we shooting? Where is it shooting? All that kind of stuff.
I don't want people saying, 'Should we get a female director?' I want to hear, 'Should we get a great director for this movie?'
I worked with John Maybury on The Jacket and I think he's an extraordinary film-maker. I read the first drafts of this piece when I was working on The Jacket, and we'd so fallen in love with him that we thought he was the only person that should direct this! We wrote poems for him, we sent him champagne and cakes. Four years later he finally read it.
