Jeremy Renner Quotes

You read a script, you try and think through what is the best, most wide-ranging way of telling the story: who stylistically, character-logically, psychologically fits inside the world of what you're trying to do. A lot of it, when you're casting, is trying to get yourself in the head of a director.

I don't normally think of a specific actor. I concentrate on the character, and then when we get into pre-production, that's how names come up.

I start casting early in the writing process, so I can tailor the script to the gifts of the actors.

If I had to choose criteria, for me, it's about first the director. I want to be a part of something that's good and intellectually challenging. After the director it's the character and the story. That's the deal for me.

A film is a chain of very difficult decisions, and I think one of them is to choose an accurate cast.

I worked in casting for about five years before I became a director, and that taught me a huge amount because you never actually will see the character walk through the door - and if you do, then you have to be slightly suspicious of that.

I am always curious to sit down with the actor who's playing the part after the casting process and get to know them, get to understand their life a little bit more.

I don't really write with actors in mind; I write with characters and then hope desperately that we can get good actors to play those parts.

Sometimes casting falls in place easily and sometimes it takes a while. Fifty per cent of my job is done when I get the right actors.

That's where everything starts, as an actor: you've gotta have great writing and great character development, and then you have really great materials to work from.

Elia Kazan. He wrote my favorite book about filmmaking, 'Elia Kazan: On Directing.' There is a thing in the book that I do every time, it's part of my production structure. He said when you're hiring an actor, ask them what draws them to the project, and don't lead them to the answer.

You set up the look, the visual effects and the sets, and that's awesome, but I enjoy the casting most of all. That's where you really get to define the show.

If you read a part that you want to play, and you already know you have actors you want to work with but it's not on the page, it's not going to be on the screen. So that is the most difficult thing to do for a producer, is to get a script that attracts this kind of talent.

I love working with actors. I love to see what they're going to do. There's just something very thrilling and satisfying with being involved with something, all the way through the process [making movie].

My own personal process with movies is to develop the characters with the actors and, when I've done that properly, you can't imagine anyone else, but that actor, playing that part.

Always when I directed the play, I was always trying to cast people not who were necessarily like the characters, but people who I felt had the essential component that the character had, some kind of soul for it.

It's interesting going between small parts and then bigger roles where you carry the film. If the writing is good, and if the people involved have integrity, then you'll do it, even if it's only five minutes on screen.

Directing has completely changed the way I write and watch films.

Nobody should expect an actor to have these wonderful ideas and concepts about the world: they pretend to be other people for a living.

The least consideration of any film I've ever worked on is who is right for it.

I always used to say, as a director, that I could make anybody good in a movie if you found the right part. It all comes down to casting.

It's a whole other way of working when you work in films: You know exactly the arc of your character.

The first thing I ask when I'm offered a part is, Who's the director? which is something they never understand in Los Angeles.

I find it easier to play someone who is so far from me because you create someone - you build this person based on the story and the script, with the director.

I spent a long time working in the movies to figure out that kind of acting and also how to write and produce for the screen.