Paul W. S. Anderson Quotes

It's a debilitating process, working with the studios. With the length of time it takes for drafts and development deals, your enthusiasm is gone before you're ready to make the film.

You always worry about films when you hear about them making decisions after announcements are made.

Eventually, everyone said, Why don't you direct? It would save time. And that's how it started.

I can make a better living as an actor than I can as a director. Though I certainly would prefer to be directing movies.

I think it's the director's prerogative, not the studio's, to go back and reinvent a movie.

Unless you're the director on the movie, or putting up the money for the movie, you really don't have a lot of control.

I can count on one hand the directors who actually directed me.

When the Pixar people call, you jump at the opportunity.

I'd really like to do a movie, either as a producer or director. My ultimate fantasy would be to direct a movie and produce the entire soundtrack. I don't really see myself acting.

At Pixar, we believe strongly that filmmakers should develop ideas they are passionate about. This may sound like a no-brainer, but in fact in Hollywood, the big movie studios have whole departments devoted to acquiring and developing projects that will only later be paired with a director-for-hire.

It doesn't make a difference to anybody if I accept or quit a film.

I was making Marvel Studios movies, Amy Pascal was running Sony. Occasionally, she would share drafts with certain people at the studio and I would read them, and see cuts of the movies. But what I've learned with is that I'm no help whatsoever giving passive comments on other people's projects.

People always ask why I don't make independent movies. I do make independent movies - I just make them at Sony and Paramount.

As far as producing, once we started shooting, I soon realized where the critical decisions about the movies were really being made, and it wasn't on the set. They were being made in the production meetings. That's where producing a movie happens. And that's where I wanted to be. I didn't just want to be a piece, a pawn being played. I wanted to take part in the creative process, and that's how I sort of got introduced to the idea.

I like to say that films are never finished, they're only abandoned.

I was living in New York, so I just rode my motorcycle up to the set [of New Jack City]. So first day of work for me was kind of tough. I get ready to get off my bike, and I'm surrounded by the security guards, who were Louis Farrakhan's Nation Of Islam guys. Who had the double-breasted suits and guns. And this guy goes, "Where you goin'?" And I said, "I'm here to work." And they said, "No you're not." And I said, "Yeah. I'm here to work on the movie." And they said, "No you're not. Get on your bike."

The cool thing about making a Western is that people want to be in them. You rarely get the opportunity. With horror movies you are always trying to convince them. People in horror are always worried it's going to be this schlocky thing, and you're always trying to convince them that it's not. With Westerns, people immediately react with, "Oh, I've always wanted to do one."

I thought that if no one was going to give me a great part - and it was very difficult to break into film, obviously - then I'd write one myself.

I would love to direct a movie, something I really like with a great cast. What a dream!

Even in our business, as is the world, we are in the age of specialisation. You see a lot of names of producers on a movie. If you have the idea, if you oversee the development, if you oversee the production, if you help package the movie, you sell the movie - you can be a producer. There's not a lot of us who do the whole gamut.

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.

In the '60s and '70s it was a great period for American films because studios were still run by individuals who worked off the seat of their pants and went along with things. At that time, they were very uncertain about what to make because of the influence of television. A lot of really terrific movies were made. But then the studios gradually became more corporate and were owned by corporations and run in that way and now they're very nervous. You see what they make - sequels, franchises and try not to take risks.

If you're producing a movie you're involved in every aspect of the movie and that can be daunting and then going and doing a movie where you're just an actor for hire, and you can kind of sit back and giggle where you can see somebody sitting over there wasting time and wasting money.

I'm from that world where I feel so comfortable making small independent movies.