Griffin Dunne Quotes

There are a lot of global decisions that you can make as a co-publisher, and only publishers can make those kind of decisions. At the same time, there are some things you can do only as a penciler or creator. I want to keep my hands in both pots, so to speak.

I've always believed that the director does whatever the hell he wants. That's what you sign on for as an actor - I can't stand it when you have actors who are trying to leverage directors into doing things they don't want to do.

At dramatic rehearsals, the only author that's better than an absent one is a dead one.

Once you walk off the set, if you're an actor, the rest isn't your responsibility, which I like a lot. I'm not responsible for the final product, which is why it's always a pleasure when you see it's in the hands of the people afterwards putting it together.

A film goes through so many hands, that by the time it's done, it might not resemble what you thought you were making.

I tell directors, 'I can't promise you a hit, but I can promise you the movie is going to be yours.' When you work for a studio, they pay you a lot of money, but in exchange for that, they tell you what to do.

There are directors, and I think this is true of all directors, it would be true if I was a director - If the actor didn't want to do what I was suggesting, I would let him do it his way, and then I would say to him, "Just give me one where you do what the director wants", and that, of course, is the take that's used.

Film is a collaborative process, absolutely, but I am a control freak.

I like the anonymity that directors can have about their films.

I'd love to see the rushes but it's just not allowed because directors and also a lot of actors feel that if they see their work, and the director likes what they're doing, the actor might try to correct their mistakes.

There's been a slow death in a way. On the positive side, there are films getting into the Academy Awards that wouldn't have, but on the negative side, financiers are now dominant and making all the decisions. I can't count the ways a director's vision is compromised.

We've been working with the very best in the business. The studio really just let us alone to make the films.

For John Woo, it is quite difficult to make a movie in Hollywood in his own style. Because Hollywood is based on a producer system, it is difficult for a director to express himself using his own style of filmmaking.

The truth is, it's a totalitarian dictatorship when you're making films. You are the boss. You can listen to other people, and it can be a benevolent dictatorship, but it's a dictatorship nonetheless. A lot of directors go past their first experience, that's what they've come away with.

By the time we got to MGM, and Lions Gate the movie was done there was nothing else to say. It was done. Just as at Universal, it was art by committee.

If I get a note on my script or my films, what I say to a studio executive is that, 'You know, this is the film of my legacy, and I never want to be sitting in a theater looking up on the screen and seeing something that I don't believe in.' I will never do that.

A director in Hollywood in my time couldn't do what he wanted to do.

That's the fun part about being a director. You get to say, 'Oh, now that I'm in charge, I can try and cast whoever I want.' They can always say no, but that's okay.

When you make a movie, you can only make the movie that you would want to see.

I love doing features, but it's a very different ballgame. Sometimes I yearn for short films again, working with a small team, getting my hands on the clay.

That's the thing about making a movie: You never finish editing. They just take it away from you.

As a director, I think it is important to keep a space between yourself and your film. It's like you are in the movie, but at the same time you are watching it from the outside.

With a film, you try to keep your vision in it. I think with 'The American' and 'Control' I managed to do that.

Although filmmaking is collaborative and involves trust, ultimately it is the director who holds the whole picture together in their head.

Studios never put pressure. They know the kind of films I want to make.