Steven Spielberg Quotes

Yet as a director, I don't feel you have to identify with your characters as a requirement to make a movie.

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 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.

As a filmmaker and film student, I think it's really interesting to hear what a director did and how they figured out how to do things.

I have fun acting, and I want to do more of it, and I want to direct my own movie.

If I've seen the movie, it means it's an influence on my own filmmaking. Every movie has a reflection in 'Night Watch.'

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.

There are many aspects to directing that have a romantic place in people's minds.

As a kid, I always wanted to be like Spielberg and to make wonderful movies. Even when I was making 'Indiana Jones,' I was looking at how he would come up with these amazing shots and how he would choreograph the blocking and all that. So I knew from early on I would go to film school and try to work behind the camera.

On a very small scale, I kind of understand why the directors that I work with do certain things. I don't consider myself an incredible director. I'm not ready to do movies by any means. But, I feel like I can be a better actress now that I've been on the other side and kind of understand the process and more of the technical aspects of it.

Being an actor started me writing, and that led to directing.

Now I'm kind of established as a director, I much prefer directing to writing.

Pick up a camera. Shoot something. No matter how small, no matter how cheesy, no matter whether your friends and your sister star in it. Put your name on it as director. Now you're a director. Everything after that you're just negotiating your budget and your fee.

I hope to direct at some point, but I don't feel the pressure to rush it. I want to really know what it is that I'm doing.

It's great to have a good relationship with the directors and learn about things you do with cameras, and how you direct.

The good thing about directing a screenplay that you've written is that you see the film in your head as you're writing it and then you see those decisions through to the end.

Directors go their whole career without being able to tell personal stories and to work with a cast as talented as they are.

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

The work of a director can be summed up in two very simple words. Why and How.

There is something about being a director where, for me personally, I get to . . . it's the closest I'll ever come to being able to be a stand up. And to use my particular sense of humor, and hear people laughing, without me having to stand up in front of an audience and tell jokes.

I've wanted to direct for a long time, but it had to be a story I wanted to tell. The writer's job is to find the story that he should tell.

I like directing much better. It's more fun, that's all there is to it. It's essentially the same job, which is storytelling, but you have more control over the way you want to tell the story. It's a high. I love it.

Directing is such a crucial part of the writing process; you start directing and you see what does not work. "Oh, God, what was I thinking?" and then you can rearrange it.

When I started making films, I wanted to make Frank Capra pictures. But I've never been able to make anything but these crazy, tough pictures. You are what you are.

Insofar as I'm good at directing, it's because I've become a writer.