Sydney Pollack Quotes

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.

Indeed, an engineer designing a structure is not unlike an artist painting one. Both start with nothing but talent, experience, and inspiration. The fresh piece of paper on the drawing board is as blank as the newly stretched piece of canvas.

Acting is an imaginative leap, really, isn't it? And imaginations prosper in different circumstances.

Directing is so interesting. You know, it just sort of encompasses everything that you see, that you know, that you've felt, that you have observed.

It's fun to try and picture what exactly is in your head and translate it onto the screen. How you can take something that lives in my mind and bring it to life - but that part is fun.

I guess I have a fascination with the idea of puppeteering. I think, in a lot of ways, directing is puppeteering. I guess I see a lot of analogies between what puppeteers and filmmakers do.

I enjoy acting, and I appreciate people who have passion about what they're doing and have a vision about the film they're trying to make.

With directing, you've got to find something and drag it up from its inception, and I'm at the early stages of doing that again. There's something all-consuming and addictive about that.

What I like about theater is its team work. Theater is also all-time creativity.

Conception, my boy, fundamental brain work, is what makes all the difference in art.

I'll tell you what I love about directing: the surprise. You never know what's going to happen with your piece until an audience weighs in.

I know one thing - if I didn't have TV and theatre and radio, the world would be a much more boring place.

The creative process for me doesn't work as well without an image of an audience in mind.

It's different being a director. I suppose, especially if it's a story you've written and you feel compelled to tell, in some ways it's a lot easier than acting because you're orchestrating the piece. As an actor, sometimes you're trying to second-guess what people want.

Every week it's another opportunity to really make that work and figure out how to make it work better. And I love that it's like theater, too, and the audience, and it's so short. It's only 20 minutes. It's like a haiku or something.

With acting, you are a small part of the creative process, and sometimes it is hard to feel like you are making an impact.

The artist is the medium between his fantasies and the rest of the world.

Reason clears and plants the wilderness of the imagination to harvest the wheat of art.

I love being able to create something from the page and bring it to life.

Directing is really exciting. In the end, it's more fun to be the painter than the paint.

It's the director's job to piece together my performance, his interpretation of my takes, each take, and string them together and make a statement. I'm red paint on a canvas for a painter.

I'm trained in the theater, and acting, for me, is about the imaginative life I create for myself, not about basing it on something real. I think that whatever I create becomes the reality for the audience.

I think, in a lot of ways, directing is puppeteering. I guess I see a lot of analogies between what puppeteers and filmmakers do. There's something about creating life out of things that have no life.

When I get a beautifully written piece of material, I immediately start imagining how I would interpret it. I love just daydreaming about it for months, breaking it down, seeing where I can spin something. How I can turn this into the most fun ride for the audience that I can make it? That's my job.

A puppet, for example, is just a piece of wood, a couple of rivets, but put them together, and if you know how to do it, and the audience's imagination joins in with this, then a miracle will come out of that machine. That is what we and the audience do in the theatre - we create miracles in that space.