Director's Role Quotes

The kindest thing a director can do is look with open eyes at everything.

If it's stage, the two most important artists are the actor and the playwright. If it's film, THE most important person is the director. The director says where the camera goes.

A director must be a policeman, a midwife, a psychoanalyst, a sycophant and a bastard.

Directors don't always create, they can also destroy with too many demands.

With most good scripts and good shows, they expect the actor to bring some of their ideas to the backstory of the character. It's always a good collaboration between the actor and the writer and the director to try stuff out during the process.

To be honest, more than what I prepare, it's the directors who do the bulk of the work, researching, collecting data and all that. I like to see myself as a processor: they feed me with the data, I give the output.

Really, it's the director's job to disappear and allow the movie to just feel.

Acting is one element in a film. Directing is sort of the painter using all of those elements - sound and music and camera and putting it all together. And that can be fun and exciting. If you fail, it's incredibly upsetting - much more upsetting than when you're an actor. But when you succeed it's incredibly, incredibly exciting, so I like the risk of it all.

If you do well as an actor, a good director will pick up on it, and keep it in the film.

I never control a film. The film controls me.

I'd love to direct, and I think I'd be a great director, but... I've been approved by the studio to direct, which I think is a cool jump of faith for them. Or proof that they're really stupid. But I don't think so.

With movies, so much of it is, 'Who is the human being that is going to be directing it?' Because it is their medium. In a way, you are serving the director, and when it is someone that you feel you can have a lot of confidence in, it can make a big difference.

If a director takes the time to document - to step back to observe - I think it I more honest. Because it has to be the public that makes the conclusions and who, possibly, resolves the situation.

When I do a film, usually I work from my director. That's my boss. The director is interpreting the writer's vision, and we all interpret it, and they create their own vision as well.

The truth is, writing and directing are two very different jobs. They're not even remotely the same job. It took me a while, as a director, to understand that.

I think one of the major things a director has to do is to know his subject matter, the subject matter of his script, know the truth and the reality of it. That's very important.

In film, it's up to the director to tell the story in whatever way he sees fit, and however you fit into that ultimate vision is where you fit in. So what you did on that stage, on that set, may not be what you ultimately see when you see the final product. And TV works so fast, it works so fast, it's just about product. The average TV show, one episode shoots eight, 10 days. That's it. You get three or four takes for a scene, and then it's over. But people do it for the money.

It's one of the things I love about my job: it's my job to help a director tell the story, to just be willing to help.

What's interesting as a director, and even studio executives don't understand this, is that if you're directing a $200 million movie with six million people, it's the same as directing a $25,000 movie with three people. The director's job is, "You stand there and do that," or "This is the shot I want." The logistics change, but the job remains the same. And I enjoy the job.

I would love to direct a movie, something I really like with a great cast. What a dream!

The craziest thing about TV directing is I turned in a version, and then they made their final changes - so I don't know what they are. So I'm like, "Ooo, I'm dying to see the final print."

Obviously, if a director doesn't communicative a clear, relevant vision of the material, it will not succeed no matter how good the material.

I know it sounds earnest, but I do really feel in my bones that acting is just a small part of the equation when you are making a movie. The director really is in charge. Actors are as important or unimportant as the rest of the people around them.

Directors are the captains of the ship, and it's your job as the lead actor to make sure that the rest of the cast understand that by doing whatever he says.

What a director should be doing is making it appear as though there was no script.