George Clooney Quotes

I had great luck with Tim McGraw twice in 'Friday Night Lights' and 'The Kingdom.' I love finding off-beat casting and finding someone you know in one way and you reinvent them in another way. I like doing that as a director.

I think one of the biggest jobs of being a director is getting the casting right.

It's true that I don't think I'd be a good director. If I were a director, I'd try to hire the best people I could and then leave them alone. I don't know much about cameras or lighting, so I'd make sure that I had a really good cameraman who understood lenses and lighting, and I say to him, "This is the scene we have to shoot and this is what I think it should be, you go do it." Same with actors. But really, very good directors who know everything do basically the same thing. They hire you and then they leave you alone.

As far as working with actors, I feel very comfortable working in that aspect of directing.

I'm not a huge kind of visual director. For me, it's all about the acting. There's no greater buzz than working with actors and seeing what they can do and how much they can improve on what you'd written. That will always be on the top of my list. It's a real privilege to see it live before anyone else sees it.

I start with actors that I know personally or I know their work, and there are things about their work or their presence or their own personality that make a character, that exaggerates some qualities and suppresses other qualities. It's always a real collaboration for me.

I've had the opportunity to work with so many great directors. Different styles, as well, like Gus Van Sant. He just does the casting and the milieu and let's you do your thing, quietly. Bertolucci, who can talk to you about your internal world in quite a creative way or just say, 'Well, put your hand over here.'

As a director, it became important to hear that specific role read by that specific actor, and you hear the chemistry, or you don't hear the chemistry. So I'm not so bothered by the audition process anymore; in fact, I use it. It's a time for the actor to actually get to the know the director and the producers a little bit, too.

I choose my actors well and get to know the quirks of their personalities - and, most of all, I share humor with them. Then I keep my eyes open when they rehearse and perform, because you never know where the next stimulation comes from.

It's very rare you get a director who's that invested in the actors. So yeah, when 'Little Fish' came around, there wasn't much negotiation!

I keep saying this, but the most important part of directing is casting, and the rest of it is pretty easy.

After making 'Secretary,' it was a real shock to me to learn that some directors just aren't interested in what actors have to say. They just don't want to collaborate.

Scorsese is a fan of improv and is always pushing actors to think up something that would make the scene more fun. He loves any idea that helps the scene be alive.

Actors always feel more comfortable when there's an actor directing, in terms of vocabulary and breaking down a scene.

I've been very fortunate to work with a lot of directors who understand that actors need to feel empowered in order to really do their job.

As a director, you see something in someone; you know it's there, you just got to go get it. You do that with any actor. That's your job.

When I did 'Gilbert Grape,' Lasse Hallstrom let me be on the set with him and in the editing room and in the casting sessions and so on. And so I got a firsthand, rather intimate, high-pressure look at how to make a film.

I think listening to the director is the number one strength an actor should have.

Directing films is easier said than done. The job needs a lot of sensibility to put many things in place.

You never have any idea where your movie's going to go when you're shooting - you're in this little bubble. Everything you care about is getting the next step right: getting the script right, finding the right actors, shooting it. Then you spend half a year in a dark room editing your film, and you don't talk to anybody.

I love to choose the right actors. It's kind of a pleasure to work with them and watch them imbue your concepts that you write.

Casting is an art, and if you're interested in people, like I am, casting is essential.

Often people going into directing want to learn as much as they possibly can about "technique." And I say the hell with that.

No film ever ends up exactly as you would like it to, but with minor exceptions, THX came out pretty much as I had visualized it, thanks to some excellent assistance -- and a whole lot of luck.

Sometimes people come in as a director, and they just want the result, and they barely want that to tell you the truth. Sometimes directors barely talk to the actors; they are so focused on the cinematic elements of the movie, getting the shot and getting the lighting right or getting the CGI effects right and all of that, and they just trust that you are just going to do what you do.