Zoe Saldana Quotes

The audience makes the decision of what kind of actor they want to watch. I always have said in the last 20 years, the real boss is the audience.

The test audience holds a great deal of power in the process of filmmaking in the United States.

I don't make movies because I think audiences will want to go see them.

I am not crazy about doing Hollywood films.

Only audiences decide what's a franchise. Only audiences decide what's a hit. I have always been mindful of not wanting to be the Miami Heat of movies.

There's a kind of unwritten rule: Don't say anything at all, and everything will be fine. It's a producer's medium. The directors aren't there to make any decisions. They're not going to change anything.

Of course, at their best, movies are anti-literature and, as a medium, belong not to writers, not to actors, but to directors.

Studios just sometimes make decisions on their own that you're always flabbergasted by. It just happens that way for whatever reason - not even pointing fingers, it just is.

Movies are certainly a director's medium, so getting the opportunity to work with really good directors is everything to me.

The difference between being an actor and a director is simple. The director has to hide his panic; the actor doesn't.

I'm reading Joe Eszterhas biography; it's fabulous. Every time he made a movie, he fought with the director or the producer over the ending.

I wanted to work on a cable show and with a writer/director because that's a much more fulfilling and freeing experience, as an actor.

Sometimes I watch films that I can't believe got made. Especially because I read scripts that are truly incredible, that will never get made. I don't know who is behind those decisions. It's like you just have to doodle something on a page about the underdog who finally gets the girl and the film gets made.

Hollywood changed to become a more marketing-driven Hollywood, where people who are running the studios are more like marketing people, and they need titles.

I didn't want to be a director for hire. It really just took me a long time to learn how to direct and to feel up to the job.

If you use Hollywood as the test tissue for mankind, what could the prognosis be?

I always believe you can't kill good movies, because somebody's in some room and will die unless it gets made.

I've always tried to be aware of what I say in my films, because all of us who make motion pictures are teachers - teachers with very loud voices.

I love the finality of film. When you make a movie, you know the beginning, middle, and end.

I wanted to be in film. I wanted to be a film student, possibly be a director or cinematographer, not an actor. That was my goal. I didn't believe I had the physical beauty that I'd seen projected and advertised in movies, in theater. It just wasn't for me.

The first time I ever intersected with the quote unquote industry or Hollywood or being given a paid job as a director all came because of the reputation I got coming out of Sundance as a veteran Sundance filmmaker.

I would love to. A dream of mine is to produce films, as well as to produce content for television.

Research can be interesting, but it can be pointless as well. The realities of making a movie often are not conducive with that. I'm not knocking it. I love doing research myself, but I admit it doesn't always add to the performance.

Ingmar Bergman is a long way from me, but I admire him. He, too, concentrates a great deal on individuals; and although the individual is what interests him most, we are very far apart. His individuals are very different from mine; his problems are different from mine - but he's a great director. So is Fellini, for that matter.

So far I've done two films that have basically been about television because I know that world.