Lenny Kravitz Quotes

I've definitely become more aware and conscious of what directors I'm working with because it's so important. The director is really more than half the battle of the film. You really rely on that. That's become really, really important to me, for sure.

It was difficult every ten days having a new director. I'm a real collaborator and, as an actor, I want to be directed. It's hard for me to shift gears.

When I'm in the studio with a writer, I don't mind for them to take the lead and show me something new.

The concept of making a movie in which the director dictates is kind of exotic - and absolutely not truthful. Directing means allowing a great deal of collaboration and listening and having the ability to change your mind.

Working with a great director is wonderful for an actor because it means that you're not forced to take the advice of an idiot.

Derek Jarman shared the responsibility for making the film. He didn't necessarily know what he wanted - he knew what he didn't want - but you had to keep coming up with stuff.

I certainly like the actor to have as much lee-way as possible. In the same way that director Bong was generous enough to let me create, you have to do that for actors, as well, and let them use the tools they have, and part of that is their own brains and their own words.

I'm a very creative person, and you know when I hooked up with Benny Boom, I said I want it to be a different kind of video. I want it to be crisp, and I want it to relate, [and] not to be so far over people's heads. And that's when we came up with the p-t-d-d-d-d-d (camera flashes.) You know with the picture changing, and that's it.

There are obviously so many artists that are very inspiring, but I can't say that they like - that I have someone in mind that is like a creative direction of where I want to go as an artist. I think I'm just doing my own thing.

Very broadly speaking, you can put directors into two areas: One for whom you work, and the other with whom you work. And I prefer the latter, for obvious reasons.

I can't do things by myself. I need a motivation, and the motivation is always the director's. I find my freedom inside other people's barriers. It's easier for me to find myself inside someone else's tracks.

For me, the greatest kind of success that I've had on a particular project or in exploring a role does come through collaboration. I wouldn't want to do a movie where everything I do the director just says, "Good job" and I'm under directed.

Your director is your everything and you devote yourself to them and you want to help create their vision.

I love when a director shows up with a lot of energy, and different ideas about how to change things and do it a different way. Once you get into series, sometimes you don't have that, so I certainly don't take that for granted when I get it.

In the beginning we were creating our music, ourselves, every night . . . starting with a few outlines, maybe a few words for a song. Sometimes we worked out in Venice, looking at the surf. We were together a lot and it was good times for all of us. Acid, sun, friends, the ocean, and poetry and music.

I discovered very soon, especially for movies, because I started in theater, that every director has his own universe. You have to be free enough to try to understand what he wants from you. Especially when that director has a tremendous personality. And I'm talking about people like Pedro Almodovar and Robert Rodriguez and Quentin Tarantino and Woody Allen. And you have to adapt. If you don't adapt to them, you are off the thing.

A director is what a director wants to be. If you want to force something, you can fight to the death and maybe get fired, but it's your job to help push things along.

If you have a vision or if you believe the director has a vision, then at least you've got something to talk about, something to try and head to and I think that's mandatory for every director to have to do a good job.

When you trust the director you want to trust his or her choices. I don't want to say, 'No, I don't like this girl or that guy," when the director really loves them. No, you want to go with what the director likes.

I like working with directors much, because I want to be able to give myself completely to their vision. Otherwise I would only do what I could do, again and again. I want to be taken by someone in a different direction.

Piper reads the scripts, and we email a lot. Most of her comments are on the more technical side, like "This wouldn't happen. This is against the rules." She's been extremely respectful of our taking her story, and then veering left with it and taking it in its own direction. But, I always want her involved because she's the mother of all this.

The work is different in the sense that I haven't had to travel round the world raising money, or work from the genesis of the project. But the collaboration feels clear always, it's sort of my drug, I'm in it for the conversation. The conversation's the most important part of it.

I think it's possible to allow an artist to go beyond his borders and play.

If a good editor will let me tell my story with the right artist, I'm happy.

Some directors are like it's their... nothing can change, nothing can move. I like collaborating, even when an extra has an idea, I like to bring to really have collaboration.