Jiang Wen Quotes

I always try to keep a little bit of space in the year to work with other people. Because I love doing musicals, films and plays - projects where I'm not in charge, where I've got somebody else telling me what to do and I have to work with their vision.

I say yes to everything if I like the overall thing that's being put out there. I'll do anything with David Wain.

Armaan has a simple approach and understands what a composer wants. I tell him, 'Give the song your own vibe but I will still come and fight with you and change it.'

Whatever you do, whatever you come up with, whatever you decide on, you can go with it, and if the director or the execs, they like it, then you'll stick with it. That's a good thing, as opposed to having something that's already written.

I have to be more universal than my projects, but no less innovative.

As a writer, you're really in control of almost everything. That's not the case in TV. You have to be prepared to work with a lot of people to make something happen, and you got to be prepared, at least in the beginning, to not be too good at your specific task.

I'm a guy that wants the movie to work. So whatever it takes or whatever you got to do - I'm happy to do.

And I think being a good director is being able to be completely tyrannical and you've got to be an absolute dictator while at the same time, you have to listen and see everything because it can all change on a dime.

I like talking about comic book process, and one of the things is that I have plans going ahead for years, and the plans constantly get thrown away and shifted. There's a difference between planning and what actually happens in life, and comics have a life of their own.

At one moment, I thought that if I didn't do a picture in a certain way, then it wasn't a 'Mario Testino Picture.' And I've realized that Mario Testino is everything, Mario Testino is whatever he feels like being, because it always ends up looking like me, whatever I do.

I basically put myself into directors' hands and let them tell me what to do, and the more they told me what to do, the more I liked it.

I'm actually one who will encourage directors to cut my lines.

Any part I do is a marriage of the words - what the playwright or producer or show runner's vision is - to how I would play it. It took me a while to get rid of 'Oh, they want it this way, so I'm going to do it how they want it.'

When you make new musicals, you have the great freedom and the great burden that it can be changed.

I don't come in with any preconceived ideas, and although I will have done some preparation, I can go which way the director wants.

My tendency as an actor was to correct people, was to say, 'What if we tried it this way, what about if we tried that way?' That's terrible habit for an actor, but that's a good habit for director. So I became a director.

I quite like the element of surprise, and as much as I have my ideas, I always appreciate ideas that come from other people as well, and I love the mystery of not knowing.

When a film works, the director had a lot to do with that, but the director also didn't have a lot to do with that. There are so many moving parts. It's really about being open to how the river is flowing and trying to get on the river.

As a director or writer, you have to be so controlling.

You need to be open and explore while heading where you want to go. You can never be too in love with your own ideas. If you can remember every idea that is yours in a script, as opposed to someone else's, then something is wrong.

One of the great things I learned from how cooperative theater is, you can't be too precious about your ideas.

I'm down to work with anyone as long as it's an organic collaboration.

I tried working with the best of directors and producers. I tried being selective, but things didn't work out. Now, I am open to working with anybody and everybody who is good. Or I'll try to make it good. That suits me.

I'm absolutely open to scripts written by someone else.

I am extremely malleable as an actor, but I also know how to get away with doing things the way I want, even if the director disagrees.