Claire Danes Quotes

To make great movies, there is an element of risk. You have to say, 'Well, I am going to make this film, and it is not really a sure thing.'

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.

It's a lot of fun to be a part of films that you don't exactly know how they're going to turn out.

One can never anticipate how audiences will respond. One of the lessons that I've learned over the years is to that no matter what my feeling or opinion might be about a given film, once you give it to the audience, they own it.

I have complete artistic control, and I just do my best album every time and trust it to fate.

Movie-wise, there is nothing I wouldn't do again. It's not possible to make one perfect movie every time.

Living as an actor is rather like living life on the trapezes in a circus. Every time you jump on, you have to pray that, when the time comes for you to jump off, there is another trapeze swinging your way.

You end up giving up half your salary every time you make a movie because you need the money to make the movie you have in your head.

I think - in general, I don't think I've been involved in a single movie that turned out the way I anticipated it to turn out. Just because, as an actor, there's only so much that I can bring to a project.

When you make a movie, you don't know how it'll turn out. You can only guess.

We have to make some movies we have passion for, respect for.

Directing a movie precludes me from being involved in any greater way. But, the job was never to do more, it was always to enable. Sometimes as a producer, you're creating and writing it, or sometimes you're writing and directing it, or other times you're there from the very beginning.

That unpredictability tag always sort of hangs around the Pakistan team, but that makes us very exciting as well.

Just because good films don't work does not mean we should stop making them.

It is difficult to make movies on your own terms and also to make a film and convince somebody to have faith in it.

I always wanted to direct a film.

As a screenwriter, you always have frustrations. It's just the nature of the job, and you have to live with it. Your vision is not going to be the same as the director's vision. It doesn't mean one is better or worse; it means they're different.

You never know the way your career takes.

Ultimately, I want to direct a movie, so that's another thing, too, where I wonder what that will look like and how will I be able to manage.

Some young filmmakers, unfortunately, don't have the ability to resist attempts to maybe cut their films down unfairly.

Directing is monumentally complicated and it's a function of all the time you pay to it. I think it would be great to do a movie I'm not in, I could just eat Fritos and just say, 'yeah, it's good!' Some day.

If I'm intimidated, I shouldn't be directing a movie. I gotta treat 'em as characters, not as stars. It's hard to not treat Marlon Brando as a legend, a star, it's difficult not to treat Robert De Niro as a star, but that had to go away very fast after I knew them, because I had to work with them. I'm the director, I'm the boss. They're looking to me for guidance.

There's no point in it unless it's a story that you really want to tell. It's a nebulous job. Unless you're doing it well, you're not doing anything. And there are a few of those. It's perfectly possible to be a passenger on a film set because if somebody else has written it, you can make nothing of that role and that's exactly what bad directors do.

Usually, you get a script and you have the whole story. All the acts are there, for a play. You know what happens in the first, second and third acts, and you know how it starts, where you go and where it finishes. [With American Horror Story: Asylum], it's a whole new experience. I don't know where it's going, and I don't know what's going to happen next. It's been an interesting way to work. It's made me work in a much more fluid, braver way, just taking every chance that comes along.

When I'm acting, I wish I was out there, being a part of it and making it. It's all on your name to do that. It's your vision. You're going to get slandered for your work, and I like that. As an actor, it's so hard. I'd rather direct than act.