Amanda Seales Quotes

I have the most fun writing and directing. And I always choose myself as the lead actor.

I've had some success at writing and directing, and I like it. It's infinitely more creative than just acting, and I have things I want to say and do.

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

I'm not like one of those actors who's a frustrated director.

Unless you write your own movies... you can't really say what you want to say.

I'm trying to do the kind of projects that I want to see in the theatre.

I feel I'm all over my movies. I know my movies are all over me.

I love being creative. I love acting, but I also love directing because you get to have a vision for the whole and bring that vision to fruition.

One of the great joys of being able to write something you can make, if you get certain actors you want and love, you're kind of buying yourself a front row seat to watch them work.

What I learned from doing 'The Graduate' was it doesn't matter what the medium is... as long as the material is inspiring and the characters are well written.

You know I'm proud that I was able to develop and produce movies that I wanted to make.

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.

I don't find acting and directing schizophrenic in any way. I find it completely easy to move between the two.

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

I want to direct, I want to be part of something creative, something with quality.

I worked with some directors, and it was really collaborative, and I was sort of writing with them. I was giving so many pieces of myself to their movies, I thought, 'It's about time I use my own voice for me, and establish my own voice.' So I knew I wanted to make films.

For me, to be perfectly honest, the part of my brain that was stimulated by directing was much more exciting than a typical day of acting.

For so many years, I've been an actor acting in other people's movies, and in 'Unstoppable,' I'm producing it, and I have an opportunity to create some of that excitement with style and form and different color templates and things like that. So, as an artist, it's really exciting.

There's a gap between what I want to do, what I do on camera, and what gets edited. Right? So the goal is to try and close the gaps. What's the biggest compliment is if I read a review and it's exactly what I wrote down in my diary before ever filming it. That's really cool. That's the biggest signifier of closing the gaps.

The acting is something that will always be a part of my life, but the writing gives me a lot more creative freedom. You're a pawn in somebody else's chess game, whereas as a writer and as a director, you get to call the shots. And that's very thrilling.

It's not so much that I want to direct but that I have to. When I write something it terrifies me that if I give it to someone else and it doesn't turn out as it could have done, I'd feel as if I'd orphaned my baby.

When I read 'The Water Diviner,' I was having the same kind of visceral reaction that I would normally have acting in something. I believed that I was the only person that could tell this story the way it needed to be told. That's the real arrogance of a director!

I view filmmaking as a director's medium.

Whether it's writing a monologue or writing standup or writing a screenplay or writing a play, I think staying involved in the creation of your own work empowers you in a way, even if you don't ever do it. It gives you a sense of ownership and a sense of purpose, which I think as an actor is really important.

To be honest, I don't think I'm an actor. I'm a creator - or try to be.