Bill Condon has made some excellent movies.
From John Huston to Fred Zinnemann and Richard Fleischer and all those great American directors.
There's a paraphrase about Orson Welles saying: "Great films are made by great directors and the rest are made by everyone else." I've been very lucky... before I start insulting the profession of directing, but I think a good director is everything and a bad director really is nothing at all.
I'm not in a 'starry' position to be able to pick and choose, but I am interested in telling stories of substance with great directors - that's my only guiding principle.
Classics stay alive because a great actor or a great director wants to do them.
As somebody who makes his living in the movie business and wants to contribute to it, I think that the best chance I have of doing that is just consistently working with great directors.
It could be sci-fi, love story, historical drama what counts for me is the fact that they're made by great directors with a great point of view who bring the audience to be elevated and at the same time entertained. That's what cinema is.
It is universally agreed that Jean Renoir was one of the greatest of all directors, and he was also one of the warmest and most entertaining.
The first 50 years of the cinema were absolutely great years. Original minds were at work establishing the ways to tell a story. And what is happening now is a copying, a pastiche-ing of what was done by great men.
The great directors, I've learned, have a great sense of rhythm.
I loved working with Peter Weir. I think he's one of the greats and will be remembered as one of the greats.
I have worked with some very great directors.
Like everyone else, I try to do quality work with great directors. But much of it has to do with luck.
I really enjoy the process of making movies. The only thing that really concerns me is working with great directors and actors, and that is fun and exciting.
I want to work with great directors. I want to work on good material with good actors. I've probably done 20 movies at this point and a lot of independents. It's been an incredible ride and I love it and I'm just going to keep going and doing what I'm doing.
I grew as an actress, and I feel I gained a lot, whenever I have worked with any great director in the past.
In terms of directors, great actors make directors - Gary Oldman was great to work with, for me; Tim Roth, too. You work with Scorsese and Spielberg and they were wonderful directors, but for me, working with actor/directors is special.
I think, certainly, directing is a visual medium, but it's also about communication, and a lot of times, great directors are lacking in communication skills, which is rather shocking to discover that.
Peter Brook's 'Midsummer Night's Dream,' I remember seeing. That was pretty early on. And suddenly, I realized how theatrical Shakespeare is, how alive, how wonderful it is when it's opened up by a great director and a great company.
I'm being offered great movies by great directors and that's what I love, that's what I've dreamed to do, and that's what I do all day long. So I have to do it.
I like great directors who are scarce. Prolific ones are nice too but for me, there's something about the scarcity that makes it all the more valuable.
I don't care about the size of the roles, or how they're marketed or billed or anything like that. I would love to be a part of stories that tell us about where we've come from, where we are, where we're going - with great directors.
I've worked with Terrence Malick, Werner Herzog, Olive Stone and David Gordon Green, and Damien Chazelle on 'First Man.' When you have someone at the helm like that, they're gonna make something great.
Working with Ridley is working with one of the great filmmakers and one of the great raconteurs. You know, it's like, a dinner with Ridley Scott or a dinner with Martin Scorsese? You just want to cut your arm off to get those.
I want to work with great directors and tell great stories - storytelling is the one great love of my life, and it means so much, and we have the ability to change the world by telling stories, and I want to keep doing that.
