Jonathan Groff Quotes

I like how you can go back and watch David Lean and John Ford and see the influence that had on Steven Spielberg, especially David Lean, in the camerawork, and yet, you don't watch any Spielberg movie and think of David Lean. Once you're looking for it, you see it all, but it's not in your face.

I like Soderbergh, Spielberg, Lucas. There's a lot of talented guys out there obviously, and if you're a fan of films, you have to look at that stuff and learn from them.

I watch movies all the time, so it's hard to pick certain specific directors that have inspired me in the aggregate.

I am sure I am one of 2,000 film directors in the world that Tarantino admires.

There are people who don't like to use other films as research, but I love it.

I guess that in this process of trying to incorporate or to be faithful to the films I admire so much, that's how I start to find my own voice. The admiration I have for filmmakers, this gratitude, perhaps that's my only way to become specific.

I like David Lynch; I like Stanley Kubrick. I'm a big fan of Kubrick.

The first time I saw Douglas Sirk was in college. I didn't encounter him on the late, late, late show like a lot of people; people a little older than me, maybe. But I saw him already as someone to take special note of in an academic context in college. I was immediately in a state of visual splendor.

You could probably ask anyone who loves Fincher films, and they couldn't answer why.

My father always told me that story was first and foremost. We would watch not just his films but a lot of classic American films. My father was a great David Lean fan, and David Lean's one of my favorite directors. We would discuss films endlessly.

I admire Akira Kurosawa. I have a deep admiration for him and I would love to make films like that.

I'm inspired by film-makers such as Ridley Scott, David Fincher, Orson Welles.

I am definitely a Tim Burton fan. I had seen 'Edward Scissorhands' enough times to know it by heart. That's exciting: to work on something you feel like you really get.

Akira Kurosawa, David Lean and Alfred Hitchcock were the main inspirations for 'Samurai Jack,' along with a lot of '70s cinema.

I've always been a big fan of entertainment. Having cable gave me access to HBO, Showtime, and The Movie Channel. Constantly taking in all these films from different eras and different styles has really given me a good vocabulary in how to talk about movies.

At age 12 I had an obsession with Kubrick's A Clockwork Orange and then proceeded to watch all the other Kubrick films I could including a doc called Stanley Kubrick: A Life in Pictures in which it was revealed to me that he started as a photographer...I got a camera sometime shortly after, but spent many years just photographing flowers in my neighborhood.

My all-time favorites that I always go back to are films by the director John Cassavetes. The movies he made, the work he left behind, have been a big influence for my work.

Michael Mann's always been one of my heroes.

I still don't feel I know Hitchcock at all. I find that the more one looks, the more elusive he becomes. But my admiration for Hitchcock the filmmaker remains undiminished. He is a giant of the cinema and the darkness in him informs his cinematic language. You can't separate one from the other.

Truffaut loved Hitchcock.

Being a kid growing up with Kurosawa films and watching Sergio Leone movies just made me love what it could do to you, and how it could influence you - make you dream.

Well, I certainly was exposed to and learned to appreciate the work of great directors early on. As a kid, my mother used to take me to see really interesting arty films in Los Angeles.

I've recently enjoyed the Paul Thomas Anderson commentaries and the David Fincher commentaries.

And I took a long time to appreciate Lynch.

The guy that made me wanna make movies... and this is off the wall-is a guy named Michael Pal, the British director.