David Ayer Quotes

A filmmaker has almost the same freedom as a novelist has when he buys himself some paper.

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.

The directing process is often a continuation of the writing. This is just a different skill-set.

I wanted to be a director first to protect my writing. I'm a playwright and you don't need to protect your writing when you're in the theater because everyone's there to protect the writing. When I had an idea for a film that I really cared about as my own, I wanted to direct it, and then I immediately became interested in directing in and of itself because it's such a deep art. You suddenly have all these tools at your disposal to tell the story.

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.

I've directed things that other people have written before, and I've written things and given them to other directors. So I'm very versatile in terms of that, and I enjoy all of it.

All the films I do, I write the scripts, I direct.

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.

I would love to branch out a little bit and... do a Judd Apatow type of movie. It just looks like it's so much fun.

I love being a writer-director. I couldn't imagine directing without writing it. You have to write and tell your stories - that's what directing is to me.

I think I'll always want to write and direct. I'm interested in producing and helping other people tell stories. But I'm still in love with writing and directing.

I think I'm drawn to films more as a director with a directorial mind even as an actor. I make movies to make the films, not to act.

Writing and directing your own film, for me, has been the best experience of my life.

I guarantee you that two directors that are any good can take the same story, change the name of the characters, change the name of the town, and make an entirely different picture.

I have considered the directing, actually. Not so much the writing. That is not really interesting, but the directing is really interesting to me.

I'm in awe of directors like the Coen brothers who can shoot their script and edit it, and that's the movie. They're not discovering the movie in postproduction. They're editing the script they shot.

I enjoy the acting, but I didn't plan on that. It fell into my lap, and I'm having a lot of fun with it, but I'm definitely moving towards directing because I'm naturally a writer, and I think a good director edits, writes, and has acted a little bit. He's done a little bit of everything, and that's what I'm trying to do.

I knew that I'd end up directing because I'm so hands-on with my films.

Directing was easy for me because I was a writer director and did all my directing when I wrote the screenplay.

I never had any master plan about directing, and I don't really write.

I want to direct one day. I want to write my own thing and really be behind the scenes because you have more creative control.

I do like the idea of being an auteur in the sense of writing and being in your own stuff.

If a film is very clever and well-written, that's what gives you freedom as a director.

I feel like I'm a filmmaker; I don't feel I need to yell action and cut.

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