Jonas Akerlund Quotes

The reason I wanted to start directing is that as an actor I felt I came into a job late. There's a whole team of people who have been working on it for months before you start. You have this really intense period of filming and then you leave it, knowing that the director will work on it for another few months.

If I heard somebody else say, 'I worked on a movie for five years', I'd be like, 'What? How could it take that long? What were you doing?'

I think any filmmaker looks back and thinks, 'Boy, if we only had four hours more on that day when the sun was going down,' or, 'If we only spent more time and went back.'

Well, I think every film student goes into film school thinking they want to write and direct their own movies, and they don't realize how much goes into it, and what a process it is.

A lot of hard work goes into making a film. It's not all fun time, as people tend to think. There are always stereotypes attached to every profession, but I found out this industry breaks them all.

I like to direct movies, but I don't like to goof around for eight years talking about it.

When you think of a movie, most people imagine a two hour finished, polished product. But to get to that two hour product, it can take hundreds or thousands of people many months of full time work.

On a television show, you basically make a movie a week. Movies take three months - it's crazy. They're so slow, it's like vacation to me.

Movies require a lot of patience. I like instant results. If I have done something that's not funny at all, the audience will let me know in two seconds. With the movie, I will have to wait nine months to know if I was that bad.

My dad always produces, and I would always sit in producers' meetings with him. I like the whole thing of putting a movie together. I think that's very exciting.

Making a film, setting it up and getting it cast and getting it together, is not an easy thing.

Making a movie is a lot of problem solving.

I got a lot of energy from directing the film 'Ladies In Lavender.' You wonder if you have the stamina because as an actor you can lounge around the trailer during the scenes you're not in, but as a director, you're there from first thing in the morning to last thing at night every day of the week. I found it incredibly energising.

Most people don't really understand what it takes to get a film made, and the struggles .I think anyone who makes a film goes through their own set of struggles.

I don't make movies because I love to act. I make movies because I like to make movies, and I like to be a part of that process.

I realized the exciting place was behind the camera with the producer, director and so on.

It's such a drag to make a movie.

I got involved in script development from the beginning. It was nice to see how a film gets made right from the beginning. It was quite hands-on for me.

It's physically and psychologically exhausting to make a film.

The process of making a movie is what I love. I thrive on that. It's an exciting miracle, a mad adventure. I love being part of it.

I love the process of working with a filmmaker and the writers and the actors.

If you're writing a screenplay for a feature, you don't have any involvement with the casting process, the editing process, the set design, the costume design, or any of that stuff.

Producing a film is not an easy job at all.

The experience of an actual film from idea to screen will teach me more than most books and lectures.

To get the film in your head on the screen, first you have to take it out of your head and explain it to everyone who is working with you. This will take work and planning.