Sarah Polley Quotes

I really enjoy talking to actors or filmmakers that enjoy that process of creating and how they go about doing it.

It's really interesting to observe each filmmaker's approach to filmmaking and I feel very fortunate to have worked with a lot of really interesting filmmakers and they all approach their job in unique ways.

All films are learning processes. I am still trying to work out how you make a movie. I didn't study at film school or any of those things. I didn't bother with film theory.

Great things that can happen when you're doing a movie.

Often people going into directing want to learn as much as they possibly can about "technique." And I say the hell with that.

I've been acting for many years now, and I find there's nothing I enjoy more than making films with my friends and people I like, who also are the funniest people around.

I like to direct movies, but I don't like to goof around for eight years talking about it. And it's pretty irritating to get a movie on. So to complicate it by having more irritation as a director, I don't really need it. And because I direct a great deal still, but in the theater, I kind of get that anyway. Which is not at all to say I would never do it again, or it would never happen again.

I never saw myself as a director. It's certainly a second language but making movies for 40 years, you pick stuff up. However, this style of making movies, this documentary style, is easier for me because I gather a lot of material and with an editor, write it on screen. You try to write based on what you shot.

I think every time you take on a new role, you're trying to help find that voice and you add your own bits and pieces along the way but with Noah [Baumbach] it's already done.

When you're a director, you have great respect for directors. I am really pretty loyal to any director that I am working for and I want to help them realize whatever story and mood and tone that they're trying to realize. As an actor, you really just are a cog - you are an important cog, but you are just a piece of the machine.

I would love to be able to get behind the camera and direct actors. I think that would be a lot of fun.

You know what's it's changed is my appreciate for the art form of making cinema. I don't want to act as much as I want to tell stories. I want to be a part of the whole collective and pull all of the pieces together. That's what I love about directing.

Directing made me realise what I do as an actor that's extraneous, it focuses your mind on story, story, story.

I think a lot of directors, they come out of film school, they don't know anything about acting. Or they're writers that don't know anything about the process. And I think they're afraid sometimes to talk to actors and be honest with actors.

I realized that a lot of the great directors that I admire from [Ingmar] Bergman to [Fredrico] Fellini re always shooting, then going into the editing room, and shooting again.

I did it [photojournalism] as something that was really rewarding to do, given the opportunity to express myself about something I cared about, and also to learn a lot by watching filmmakers I admired. In a sense, it was my film school. After doing it for a few years, I decided that the time had come to get it together and do some work of my own. So I stopped doing that and wrote some screenplays on speculation, because even though I wanted to direct, to direct you need a lot of money.

When I was on set I tried not to bug Steven Soderbergh too much. "Why did you put the camera there?" But he was very open to my questions and definitely being on his set was really thrilling because he's such a master.

I'm looking for challenges, and as always, what matters is the script, the character and the director.

Directing has completely changed the way I write and watch films.

For me, I see filmmaking as art.

When you direct a movie, you're basically looking at a story, the way you want to look at it. You bring that director's vision, and I'm totally open for that.

The director is the only person who knows what the film is about.

Films are not mathematics - that's the first thing you need to understand. At least, that's how I feel. They are not words on paper. Films are made with people, with teams and with individual bundles of creativity coming together to fulfill the vision of an individual who is the director of the film.

I'm trying to interpret the film through the director's head, but it all comes out through me. So, a composer is kind of like a psychic medium.

I think I'm drawn to films more as a director with a directorial mind even as an actor. I make movies to make the films, not to act.