Judd Apatow Quotes

To make great movies, there is an element of risk. You have to say, 'Well, I am going to make this film, and it is not really a sure thing.'

Stories have tangents; they open up and become different things. You can still have a structure, but you should leave room to dream. If you stay true to your ideas, filmmaking becomes an inside-out, honest kind of process. And if it's an honest thing for you, there's a chance that people will feel that, even if it's abstract.

You don't make a film because the audience is ready for it. You make a film because you have questions that are in your gut.

I can't help seeing 'Waste Land' as the third in a triptych with my earlier films 'Devil's Playground' and 'Blindsight,' and not least in the awe and gratitude I feel for the group of people who were courageous enough to share their stories with us - and to live lives so rich in inspiration for us all.

It's amazing what you can do without in terms of filmmaking when a story is really important.

The truth about filmmaking is you have all these ideas and you're trying to convince everybody that they should buy into this idea, but at two o'clock in the morning when you're all on your own you're going, 'Geez, I hope I know what I'm doing. I hope this idea is gonna work.'

You can take a handful of dollars, a good story, and people with passion and make a movie that will stand up against any $70 million movie.

I decide intuitively what I want to do. When directors like Imtiaz Ali, Ayan Mukerji, Anurag Basu and Anurag Kashyap, who have stories to tell, come to me, why would I not be a part of it?

With every movie, I try to do something different, whether it's action, comedy or drama.

All my films have some kind of statement about something - but I have to coat it with entertainment to make it palatable. Otherwise it becomes a polemic, and people don't want to see it. If you're trying to get a message out to people, you've got to entertain them at the same time.

No one ever sets out to make a bad movie. There's almost always incredible amount of passion and work put behind any given project. You just have to give it everything you got, and sometimes it works out, and a lot of the times it doesn't.

I really feel like you shouldn't make a movie as a kind of exercise. You have to be all the way in.

You don't have to have a true story to make a true story movie.

I'd like to do a hundred different films.

I truly believe that cinema is a collaborative effort, and as long as I get to tell, and be part of, interesting stories and work with genuine people, I don't see any project as a 'risk.'

If Madhur Bhandarkar makes a movie tomorrow, people will expect him to do something like 'Chandni Bar' or 'Corporate!' Similarly, it takes time for filmmakers to break that stereotype and attempt something new - it is difficult for filmmakers to be versatile in Bollywood.

I'm often asked how I shoulder the responsibility of films, but I've always believed in taking risks.

The frustration of a movie is that you are creating a new business every time you go off to make one, and in a funny way, that's what's exciting.

I'm curious and you know, I really think cinema is strong medium that allows you to go to so many different mental countries, not just geographical countries. As far as it allows me to express something of my own truth, it's fine for me. I can go to the moon.

I've been inspired by films since I started dancing, and I'm married to a filmmaker, and I think it was one of my secret desires, but I was afraid to just say, 'I want to be a director'. But then one day I said, O.K., stop dreaming and do it. But I didn't want to do it the Hollywood way, and talk through agents. I decided it all had to be generated by me, so I wrote it.

I genuinely try to make movies I'd want to go and see, movies that are a bit more challenging.

I've documented a lot of things myself as a filmmaker. If you want a rockumentary, that's in there.

There's no point in it unless it's a story that you really want to tell. It's a nebulous job. Unless you're doing it well, you're not doing anything. And there are a few of those. It's perfectly possible to be a passenger on a film set because if somebody else has written it, you can make nothing of that role and that's exactly what bad directors do.

Science fiction is not predictive; it is descriptive.... Prediction is the business of prophets, clairvoyants, and futurologists. It is not the business of novelists. A novelist's business is lying.... Open your eyes; listen, listen. That is what the novelists say. But they don't tell you what you will see and hear. All they can tell you is what they have seen and heard, in their time in this world, a third of it spent in sleep and dreaming, another third of it spent in telling lies.

I am a director because I believe in my own impulses and my own point of view, and that belief encourages me to tell stories that will move, provoke, and change people. But I became a director because I wanted to be a part of the world.