Lee Unkrich Quotes

There is something wonderful about turning up every day and knowing that not just the character but the whole movie kind of rests on your shoulders. And there's great satisfaction when you think it's going well and then real terror when you think it's not.

I cannot afford to make mistakes.

The way you can be careful of the catastrophe that success can bring is by paying attention to something else that comes along with success - responsibility.

You can't mess up. If you do, everyone wants to kill you.

I don't get paid if my clients don't get better by a certain time period. And sure, I have not been paid before. We all fail sometimes; it's okay.

With success came an ever-growing burden of responsibility. I lived with a near-constant low-level anxiety that I would make a mistake that would not only threaten my career, but also my brothers' - not to mention the livelihoods of many people who work with us or for us.

I think it's one of the main negative emotional ingredients that fuels show business, because there's so much at stake and the fear of failure looms large.

Writing on assignment, with lots of money handed to you before you even began, got very scary for me. My dread of not being perfect, something I got from a childhood surrounded by powerful, successful people, began to infect everything I wrote.

I don't have to act for work anymore; I can act for passion. That's freeing, but it's also a prison of its own. When you can do anything you want, you're really responsible to do something great. And that's scary.

The difficulty with any sort of esteem is that more is expected of you.

Directing can be very lonely and quite intimidating.

I am aware that as an actor, I can blame others for the failure of a film, the director, the script, choice of co-stars, timing of the release and so on. But now, as the director, I will have to shoulder all the blame.

In the IPL, you are often single-handedly responsible for the fortunes of your team. It makes you more responsible as a player.

Cheating is not the American way. It is small, while we are large. It is cheap, while we are richly endowed. It is destructive, while we are creative. It is doomed to fail, while our gifts and responsibilities call us to achieve. It sabotages trust and weakens the bonds of spirit and humanity, without which we perish.

If expectations are low, you can only impress people. But if expectations are there for you to be the leading guy, and you've been paid X amount of money, you're on a tightrope, and all of a sudden, you're looking down.

I often say to people that producing is the best-paid form of cowardice. When you produce things, you almost always get credit if it's a good record, but you hardly ever get the blame if it's not! You don't really take responsibility for your work.

That's true, you don't want to let anybody down and here are millions of people who've been waiting for their favorite characters to be brought to life and you don't want to disappoint.

Do not fear mistakes. There are none.

I think when you're doing a lead role, there is so much more pressure. If you fail, not only do you fail, but everybody else fails, too. As opposed to when it's a supporting role and it's only you that sucked.

As a producer you have creative control, and that's what is so exciting about it. At the end of the day, if you have made a film it's totally your responsibility, and if it works it's your responsibility and if it doesn't it's also your responsibility.

If we do our job right, then we have everything to stand on. If we don't do our job, we have everything to lose on.

If I missed once, I might never catch up again.

Absolute authority will be delegated. Full responsibility will be assumed. Those who succeed will receive advancement and satisfaction of desire. Those who fail will die.

I have so much to live up to as well as live down.

If you're the star of a show, the next one has to be as good or better, and if you're doing a series, if anything goes wrong, it's your fault. There's nobody else to blame.