Ang Lee Quotes

You know, there was not much wire work for any of us actors to do because the extent of what they did was so huge. I mean, they wouldn't just throw you from this table to that wall.

It's all about the special effects.

With the fight scenes, they would take a video camera and shoot alongside the camera so we would piece it together on the computer and had an extremely rough cut of what we were doing.

When you're doing a film that has so many effects, you do a lot of it on green screen, and you can't see what that world is.

Arachnophobia' was one of the first films I did major effects for.

There are shots that I had to walk away from because we had to get the movie in the theaters. There are some in "Independence Day" and "Godzilla," but lately I got smart. I would plan it so I had enough time [to get it right]. That just comes with experience.

I'm a big fan of the Pixar movies, and Ed Catmull, who wrote a book about his experiences producing them, talks about how it takes three or four years to get it right.

I've been acting for many years now, and I find there's nothing I enjoy more than making films with my friends and people I like, who also are the funniest people around.

The other thing is that when people mention computers - and I'm pretty much the same - they find it hard to comprehend that there's a performance there. They look at it as something that's just been made by a computer but in a way the difference is that when you make a normal film - and I'm simplifying it here - you put on the make-up and you put the scenery in before you start shooting, but with this you still perform in the same way but then you put the make-up on after, along with the costumes and scenery.

I wrote the plot [for the Persepolis ]and Vincent [Paronnaud] and I wrote and discussed the shooting of the script. Vincent then took care of the production design, the actual shooting, and what was going on within each scene. It's very difficult, though, to draw a line between who did what. Because Vincent would say something, and I would add something, and at the end you have this film, yet no clear idea of who did what.

When I want to tackle a story or a subject, I always ask myself three questions: Is it important to talk about that? Will it interest other people than just me? Can I live with that for three or four years because that's how long it takes to do the project, to write the script, and to direct it, and then to do this.

I think I did fifteen long features and fifteen documentaries, or something like this, which is very little when you think of people making a film every year. Some people have done fifty or sixty films.

I would love to be able to get behind the camera and direct actors. I think that would be a lot of fun.

I wrote a script and I've been whispering in director's ears for a really long time and I'd love to direct.

I would love to win an Oscar one day. That would be a very wonderful thing. But in the meantime, I really hope that I make films I'm proud of. A lot of people aren't going to like the movies I make, I'm sure. But as long as I'm proud of the movie and I'm not selling out, and I'm doing things that make me happy and make me grow as an actress, I'll be good.

I'm not a great fan of green screen. It's not much fun for actors. It's great for directors and technical people and cameramen.

The work of the director is the work of constructing the shot list from the script.

When I say that it's taken us [with Luca Guadagnino ] 11 years to make this film, what I mean is that it was 11 years ago that we started to talk about a kind of cinema that we wanted to make together.

Films don't take as long as people think. 'Harry Potter,' people always used to say, 'Well, my God, do you ever get any time to yourself?' I think I did, in 'Harry Potter,' over a 12 year period I did five days. So it's not exactly exhausting.

Getting back in the directors chair - there's a sense of like doing something every year. It's not like riding a bike, you're always learning new things, you're gonna face new challenges and when you face new challenges you'll have an answer for them.

Snow Cake is a lovely film. Really proud of that. We shot it in 21 days. I thought Sigourney was amazing in it. And very, very accurate. I think there was some element that thought she had pushed it too far. But not at all when you do the amount of homework she had done and spent the amount of time she did with adult autistics. She was right on the money. And I think Marc Evans is a terrific director. He's a sweet, open, honest man and a really good director of actors.

It's a simple thing he [Frank Daniel] taught me. If you want to make a feature film, you get ideas for 70 scenes. Put them on 3-by-5 cards. As soon as you have 70, you have a feature film.

With most movies I've done before, I've done a lot of preparation. I've known about them long before [shooting], and I've prepped and changed my body and done research, and all the things you could imagine.

It's not often I get to do a film that turns out good. Plus, there just aren't that many great directors out there. There are a thousand different decisions that need to be made with each script and it's the good directors that can make those decisions. It's a long and complicated process in regards to what looks good on paper. Working on a bad film can be fun too. It can be a good exercise that gets you writing.

I never really understood how movies were made, because it was such a technical accomplishment.