Directorial Vision Quotes

I don't really believe in the mystery of cinematography - what happens in the camera is what the cinematographers create and all that nonsense - I want the director to see what I'm trying to do.

The directing is something that is incredibly satisfying to me and challenging to me because it's asking me to draw on everything I've been able to absorb over all these years of acting and having all this set experience.

The most creative director I have worked with is Mani Ratnam.

I always like being a director in terms of giving acting notes and punching up on the fly.

I started studying filmmakers, and I would say early on the ones that really inspired me the most were like the field magicians of music videos.

I've always felt, pound for pound, I'm one of the best guys around; but you get stuck in people's eyes in a certain way, and it takes an imaginative director who will look at you and realize you can play different kinds of parts because you are an actor.

Some of the best art in the world is collaborative, a mix of voices that are stronger together than separate. Take the Beatles, for example. Or every great movie ever made. We like to say they're the director's vision, but really, they're huge collaborations between directors, writers, actors, even producers.

One of the main reasons I am so drawn to Hitchcock is that he planned his shots way in advance on story-boards, which he designed like classic paintings (he was an art connoisseur). It's why he found shooting on set boring - because he had already composed the film in his head.

When you're a director, you have great respect for directors. I am really pretty loyal to any director that I am working for and I want to help them realize whatever story and mood and tone that they're trying to realize. As an actor, you really just are a cog - you are an important cog, but you are just a piece of the machine.

I'm very attracted to directors who want to experiment. The thing that attracts me the most are people who are trying find a language that is correct for their film, for that specific film.

I discovered very soon, especially for movies, because I started in theater, that every director has his own universe. You have to be free enough to try to understand what he wants from you. Especially when that director has a tremendous personality. And I'm talking about people like Pedro Almodovar and Robert Rodriguez and Quentin Tarantino and Woody Allen. And you have to adapt. If you don't adapt to them, you are off the thing.

Event cinema is what it is, and I understand why it's successful. It started with things like 'Jaws,' which are extraordinary movies. But what we've lost are great character films which are beautifully directed and had great movie stars in them. Films that were about something rather than about spectacle.

'Scarface' was a tremendous undertaking, and I'm one of those who really feel that no one could have done it like Brian De Palma.

You have a soft spot in your heart for each movie, and you're doing certain things. You're learning as you're going, as a director, and each movie is its own entity.

I've never understood the cult of Hitchcock. Particularly the late American movies... Egotism and laziness. And they're all lit like television shows.

Movie directing is a perfect refuge for the mediocre.

I went to film school, and I came in when video art was king, weird stuff was king, and there, you don't have a script as your bible.

As long as I don't go onstage completely normal and then jump into character onstage, I assume that most fans would be able to accept me as the creator. I can comment on the work the same way a director would on his movie.

Four directors through their own interpretation created four different characters. And I had to play them in a fairly short period of time.

In my first-ever shot, there was a big shell that was dropped on my belly in slow motion. I even asked the director why we are doing it, and he said it would look beautiful... and I wondered, 'Really? But why and how?'

I'm not someone who comes onstage and says, 'I'm rewriting this now.' I don't think it's fair to the writers or the director, or the other actors.

I'd say that 'In the Heart of the Sea' is the most challenging movie I've made. It was tough to figure out how to lead this large cast into some very sensitive, intense, emotional scenes.

A script like 'Nightcrawler' gives me an opportunity to truly realize a vision that's mine, which is exciting.

I've seen 'Babel' four times. And each time I realize anew what a monumental project that had been for me.

I had a philosophy, which may have been proven right, that directing isn't as hard as everyone says it is.