Ira Sachs Quotes

I love the idea of longevity in this career. But [producing] is not about, "Let me do this because this might happen 20 years down the line." Sleepwalking wasn't a vehicle for me, it was a film that pushed the ­envelope. I want to produce good stories, versus creating a niche where I can look after myself as an actor.

Right now I just want to play good roles, and if the role happens to be a gay man, that's not of any import other than, 'Is it a good story? Does it say something that's interesting?'

All filmmakers want the option to make another film, to have it not always be such an uphill battle - for it to be our life, our working life.

So making the choice to be involved in the pro wrestling industry is always looked at as a short-lived choice, and there are very few and far in between opportunities to continue a career in wrestling if your time is up as a wrestler, as a female.

I would love to write and direct.

Well I don't think of myself as like a horror or science fiction filmmaker. I just think of myself as a filmmaker.

I think my concern is I know my voice, and I know the kinds of landscapes that interest me, so my primary concern is doing the most I can with those voices and those landscapes.

I think you really have to know what you want if you want to be an artist. Otherwise, you just kind of end up in space, just floating around.

The industry has always been accepting of gay artists, but a particular thing for me is to see gay artists of color.

I guess that's the big challenge of any art: Do you want to be something for everyone or everything for someone?

I don't think I have too many filmmaking years left since I hurt my spine and knee.

When I started making films, it was never that I had this great ambition to only do gay-themed material.

To get the opportunities I've gotten has been insane. But also interesting. With the Starbucks commercial, I found it fascinating that once it was on the Internet, tons of people, especially gay people, were like, 'Why did they choose drag queens to showcase our community?'

What I've learned is that the clearer the creative vision, the clearer the idea for the show, the easier it is to rally your partners around what you're doing.

When I was first starting out in the industry in the early '90s, gay love stories were relegated to limited-release films that were hidden deep in the back of Blockbuster video stores.

It's time for gay people to be in the industry and talking about their stories.

When I'm writing the poem, I feel like I have to close my eyes. I don't mean literally, but you invite a kind of blindness, and that's the birth of the poem.

One of the things that 'Love, Simon' is doing that hasn't been done before is it's a gay teen rom-com with a mainstream wide release and the backing of a studio that previous gay rom-coms have not had. I'm really excited by that.

I feel like directing is more about who the individual is rather than if they're a man or a woman. It's kind of hard to generalize and group all of us female filmmakers into one group, like we're all going provide you with the same thing, because we're not. We're all individuals.

I stick to what I do best, and I think what makes an artist an artist is when they know who they are.

No one reads my books until they're finished because I don't want feedback. It confuses me, and it changes things; if I get too much feedback, I get thrown off my path.

I was blessed enough to know that I wanted to be a filmmaker when I was a kid, the first time I realized that that was something people did for a living.

I'd love to make 10 to 12 films in my life. That's a lot of films, but it's doable.

I think, in general, straight actors should be able to play queer roles just as much as queer actors should be able to play straight roles. I think the reason why the debate is there is because we haven't had enough queer actors being cast in anything. People are in need of that representation in general.

There have been some good British gay films.