Rob Reiner Quotes

If you can get your movie made the way you want to get it made, no matter what the end result is going to be, if people are going to see it, that's awesome.

I direct, and I make movies I can't finance. I can't raise money. I can't sell anything. I make things.

I only want to make movies I want to see. That may mean my career is somewhat limited, but that is my version of integrity. No matter how it performs or how it's received, I can be okay with it.

I've been blessed with enough wealth that I can make a film myself up to a certain budget. So one way I thought I would reinvent myself was just to make these very small, personal films that I've financed myself.

The ultimate thing is creating your own stuff and making projects for yourself. That's what Seth Rogen does. He's writing and producing a lot of the movies that he's the lead in.

I have a freedom that's incredibly valuable. Obviously my freedom is far smaller in scale than people like Zemeckis and Spielberg have here. But it's comparable. I can dream up a project, develop it, make it, control it, release it.

I'm always looking for a reason to say no when I'm approached about a big studio tentpole because your fear is will you be consumed into the anonymous machine, and it will suck out any specificity and point of view that you might hope to express.

You make a movie that is about what you want it to be about and let people have their reaction to it.

I'd be absolutely happy to go back and make a smaller picture. I never want my choices to be dictated by budget. That's one of the reasons why I take so much pride in being able to make films for $2 and a paper clip - because I can always get my hands on $2 and a paper clip. I never have to ask for permission for that.

I think it's the same thing for a country. We are lucky then that we can get some financing from the government, because it means when I get the money, when I get the grant to do the film, of course it's based on the script, but I have total artistic control and I can do personal stuff.

Try to produce your own films, avoid directing for hire.

If I can't make the kind of film that I want to make, then the hell with it.

If I can make the movies I want, people are going to watch it how they're going to watch it.

On the last couple of movies I made - big-budget Hollywood movies - I really missed being able to create my own material.

You don't always just have to do an indie movie to feel like you're controlling it with a few people that you really have connected with, creatively. You can do it on a bigger scale.

Well, since I produce and pay for my own albums, it is the ultimate freedom.

My big goal in life was always to figure out how I can make a lot of money so I can go off and make films irrespective of the opinion of the three or four critics who seem to rule the roost.

As long as I can make lots of money in other businesses, I'll continue to subsidize my own work.

I make movies I want to see.

I'm not an artist who has an agenda that's set by the work.

A film like 'Good Night And Good Luck,' you make that for $7 million because you know it's a black-and-white film, and it's not an easy sell. If you make it for $7 million, then everybody can have a chance to make a little bit of money, and you get to make the film you want to make.

I don't make movies because I think audiences will want to go see them.

I have actually been very fortunate to be able to make films on my own credit card without having huge funders behind me dictating how the story should be told.

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

I always say that AMC hires filmmakers, and they let them be filmmakers.