Samuel Goldwyn Quotes

That's the trouble with directors. Always biting the hand that lays the golden egg.

Having been subjected to the pigeonholing of Hollywood myself, I realized that once you become a studio-approved director, your chances of ever making your own film again are zero. You make the films that the studio wants you to make.

It is always sound business to take any obtainable net gain, at any cost and at any risk to the rest of the community.

I think, honestly, that the word 'indie' is a false gimmick. 'Independent' used to mean a movie that was financed outside corporate Hollywood, but a lot of what gets called independent these days is totally produced within that system. And there's nothing wrong with that.

I'm proudest of the fact that I've been able to make a few movies in the studio system that are slightly unorthodox and personal. But it's never quite as easy as you dream that it could be.

Blockbusters run the mainstream industry. We may never again have a decade like the 1970s, when directors were able to find such freedom.

I don't miss directing at all, and I don't miss screenwriting either because somebody's always telling you to do something different.

Carefully execute every instruction given to you by the director, producer, and studio. But that would be a life not worth living.

I'm not interested in making a $60-million studio film with a bunch of 24-year-olds telling me what to do.

This whole phenomenon of the diversion of organizations from their purposes and ideals does not seem very serious when the scum rise to the top in the bridge club or the offices of a small magazine publisher.

We have seen that in this country in the last few years, particularly on Wall Street, with the rise of the old human frailty of greed. This occurs when people begin to serve only their own needs to the detriment of everyone else.

Having a studio tell you when to jump and how high eight months of the year for six years is not a relationship I want to get into again.

Some directors expect you to do everything; write, be producer, psychiatrist. Some just want you to die in a tragic accident during the shooting so they can get the insurance.

But I feel that I have a responsibility to help the film and I have relations with the studio and with those who put up the money so that I can tell a story that I believe in.

Actors dread working with studios because they dictate what you do in a way that independent movies can't.

I find it quite difficult on studio films because there are so many different executives and things like that that you have to go through, so very often getting that definitive opinion is actually quite difficult.

I became merely a pawn used to produce more money for Warner Bros.

One of the reasons - I stopped doing films for about a year and a half because I felt that I was being somewhat used by producers that were trying to get their movies made within a certain budget range and not take care of me.

You are treated like a cog in a machine. The director might be obsessing so much with the stunts that he doesn't notice your performance, and the producer may just be an insane money man, but I have no snobbery about the movies.

I suppose where I am sort of reflects the work I have chosen to do. Are there occasional frustrations because I can't work with a certain director because it's a big studio movie, and I don't have enough of a studio profile? The answer is yes. But generall... generally, I have the career I have chosen myself.

A lot of directors tend to manipulate actors' vulnerability to get what they want, and that can work.

I want to make big movies - but I don't want to have to die a little death every single time I do. Until I meet the people or the studio or the business people who will let me do things a little bit more the way that I need to do them, I probably shouldn't be making big studio movies.

In America, I don't think you have the creative freedom that I'm used to. Traditionally, it's a producer's cinema here.

Hollywood seduces a person who's used to making theater, art, and having success on their own terms and then tries to squish them into a box and, eventually, throws the box out.

I was fortunate to write pretty much a year out of film school and start making movies in the Hollywood studio system. But with each progressive film it became more frustrating not being able to speak and say things I wanted to say.