Alan Ball Quotes

All directors have their strengths and weaknesses, as all actors have, and all artists. What you try to do is complete the relationship and take care of the stuff that the director won't take care of.

So yeah, a good director will be able to listen and hear everything, but have a confident vision of his own that he can say, 'oh yeah - that's a great point.' And you never know; often you can help far more than you think you can, because there's so much more that he's juggling than an actor.

No, I wouldn't direct a movie, no. I couldn't. I don't have the patience for it, I don't have the people skills. You have to be clever. I'm not really clever in that kind of way. And you have to be able to manipulate people, but at the same time allow them to feel like they are manipulating you, to get the kind of movie that you want.

Directing is extrovert and gregarious; writing is isolating, introverted, and lonely.

I had a philosophy, which may have been proven right, that directing isn't as hard as everyone says it is.

The director is the ultimate creative arbiter of what's going to happen. And as a director myself, you really appreciate collaborating with people who are trying to help you find what you need and what you want.

I love writing. I think writing and directing go hand in hand.

When you're writing, in theory, everybody is serving you. When you're directing, you're serving everybody - in the guise of acting like everybody's serving you. But you're really serving the materials. You're serving the actors. You're in charge, but it's not free.

I do like directing other people's material.

I can't do a film after having debated it. I am unable to do a film while discussing it with my team. I issue directives. I do not achieve it otherwise.

I love being creative. I love acting, but I also love directing because you get to have a vision for the whole and bring that vision to fruition.

I enjoy directing more when I don't have to direct myself. I like when I can just be the director.

I suppose directing on set is the most fun because it's a good crack and you feel you're on the battlefield whereas writing is a fairly solitary undertaking.

As a director, I never feel that I have the answers.

I love being on set, because I've basically grown up on a set. And now I love to contribute as a director and help steer the ship, if you will.

I love the experience of getting to direct because I can have all of the fun of helping shape the show, but I don't have to actually do it, so I don't have to deal with the nerves.

I don't really understand why everybody doesn't want to direct. It's an absolutely fascinating combination of skills required and puzzles set on every possible level, emotional and practical and technical. It calls upon such a wide variety of skills. I find it completely absorbing.

If you think that something worked and your directing partner doesn't think so, then maybe you have to re-think what you were doing.

Directing is the best job going. I don't understand why everybody doesn't want to direct. It's an absolutely fascinating combination of skills required and puzzles set on every level - emotional and practical and technical. It calls up on such a wide variety of skills. I find it completely absorbing. I just love the whole process.

A director makes 100 decisions an hour. Students ask me how you know how to make the right decision, and I say to them, 'If you don't know how to make the right decision, you're not a director.'

Shadowing is really a great way to learn how the entire TV-making mechanism works. I had the distinct pleasure of shadowing the gifted and talented Allison Anders, who taught me a great deal about the importance of collaboration and trusting the talent around you.

You - as a director, you have to do your job, you have to show things, and you don't have to ask the actors to do it, or the dialogue.

The nature of filmmaking is that there are so many people involved in it, so many fingers in the pie, that part of the talent of a director is to try and get your personality through in the movie.

I think everything that I've done, I've been involved with for longer. Either you develop it from scratch, or you take something, and you develop it, and you work on the script, but I'm not sure how good I'd be at just sort of taking a piece of material and being a director for hire like that.

When it comes to filmmaking, we have to deal with ego, anger, and a lot more; barring all these, how the team works towards the outcome matters.