Manoj Bajpayee Quotes

Ultimately when I throw myself behind a movie, I have to really believe in that director's vision.

When you direct a movie, you're basically looking at a story, the way you want to look at it. You bring that director's vision, and I'm totally open for that.

You know as a director what you want, but the film is smarter than you, the film says no, the film says there's something more here.

I want to photograph what I see and put it in a dramatic context. I'm an actor and a writer, and I want to tell these stories and present these shapes, colors and movements as I see them, as I see them serve a narrative. As I see that narrative serve an audience. That's what I want to do.

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.

I wanted to have a reaction from the audience. I wanted to be able to talk to somebody, and not be talking just to myself. That's when I did 'The Conformist,' 'Last Tango in Paris,' etc. And I found it was incredibly rewarding, something new.

As a director, you never think about how an audience would respond. You can think about that, but you will never change what you're going to do.

When you're a director, and you look at Scorsese's work, he's always challenging us to push the envelope and break the rules. Someone like that is necessary and a godsend.

I want to make the movies that move people in a way they've never been moved before.

The thing is, as a film director, you're essentially alone: You have to tell a story primarily through pictures, and only you know the film you see in your head.

I like directing. It takes a lot out of you, but I'd like to do it again - I just have to find a story I want to tell.

When you agree to work with a filmmaker, it's important that you accept their world. It's an adventure. I like that. I throw myself into the director's arms, into their universe.

All the director wants is their idea of the movie to be believed in.

I think every movie changes me and is life changing, especially movies you direct.

When I sign on for a project, I'm there to give the director all the material he or she might need to tell their story, and that's the number one priority.

When you look at a movie, you look at a director's thought process.

I'm not the kind of director who aims to send a message out.

A film is a director's vision... there is, however, much input an actor or actress can have.

What I try to do - I mean 'try,' because you don't get there all the time - is to have impact with content. It's those moments in which you're trying to bring people beyond filmed theater. If I have an ambition, it's that.

When I read 'The Water Diviner,' I was having the same kind of visceral reaction that I would normally have acting in something. I believed that I was the only person that could tell this story the way it needed to be told. That's the real arrogance of a director!

The most important thing when you do a movie is that you find an audience that really understands what you want to do and is really supportive of it.

My greatest strength as an actor is that I follow my director's brief completely. The film is always the director's visual baby.

The filmmaker's got to make it his story and the actors have got to make it their story.

Going through this musical experience really helped us to understand the core of the film.

I think when you're a director, it's hard to do something unless you're absolutely over-the-moon in love with it. The audience, they spend 90 minutes with it, but for you, it's anywhere between a year and a half to three years of your life, every day, working on it.