Amy Seimetz Quotes

Life is painting a picture, not doing a sum.

Obviously, after every film you do, you wonder what you're going to do next.

First of all, I never make a movie for awards consideration.

There is no guaranteed formula. And that's one of the interesting things about filmmaking. You could put $115 million in, and it doesn't guarantee success.

My work is a matter of fundamental sounds (no joke intended) made as fully as possible, and I accept responsibility for nothing else. If people want to have headaches among the overtones, let them. And provide their own aspirin.

I've done a lot of different things. I would say, it's really hard for me to say what the ultimate role would be. You look at a film if it comes to you.

There are a lot of spikes that can happen when what you're doing starts to get attention or people start to talk about it. They can just kind of really do a number on your reasons for making music.

I have no idea where my career is going. I just make the best music that I possibly can.

I don't want to move over to Beverly Hills. My goal is to make the movies I want to make and support the people I want to support. That's it.

All I can to, and the only sense of control I have over this crazy moviemaking business, is to pick things that I like with people that I love and respect, and then just hope everything else works out.

I sort of have various sort of theories when people ask me about songwriting because it is a mystery. You don't really know. Sometimes you can do it and sometimes you can't. It's really peculiar.

There's something that happens where you go, if you're lucky, goodness me, from film to another film to another film. And you can sort of feel that if you step off that treadmill, it might all go horribly wrong and you might never be employed again, you know. And I suddenly thought that that's not necessarily the case. And I also thought we make drama as actors about people in the world and that if you are on that treadmill, you start making films about other films.

A lot of people thought I got famous as a studio artist, then decided to cash in on it. But it actually was just a matter of survival for many years, and I felt it was really important for me to be able to say whatever I wanted with my street art and fine art.

Unfortunately, you're helpless when people interpret your work wrongly. There are simply people who can't or won't understand or accept what you're trying to do. When you take the risk of expressing yourself in public, you have to open yourself to that possibility.

When you're dealing with Hollywood people, it creates a tight, tense atmosphere through the whole thing. And I don't like to work in that kind of atmosphere. I like to make my movies in a kind of relaxed atmosphere.

What's interesting about making art is that you take everything you know about it and you bring it up to that point, and you start making a physical thing that addresses what that is. And when you do it, you don't know anything about it - if it's going to work or not work.

[Personal life] doesn't affect my creative process. It just gives me more subjects to talk about. Basically whatever you put in your music is how you want people to view you.

I don't really know how writing process happens, how these songs are arrived at. One of the things I like about the writing process is, I don't necessarily know where it's going, and even if I think I know where it's going, it'll turn out different. I find that exciting and rewarding.

People go, 'What do you want to do?' What do you want to do? What are you feeling? Going into a shoot not fully knowing what I want to do—that excitement, that thing that happens, is just so powerful and makes such great pictures.

I find that the great artists I've met are people who are so playfully invested in their process that, even if it doesn't come out the way they like, they still power through and even take energy from it.

I always believe you can't kill good movies, because somebody's in some room and will die unless it gets made.

You kind of notice what's going on in your body, and you can kind of feel a certain tightening, or fear, which is something that, as an artist, I've kind of befriended. I can pretty much count on it for anything that I engage in - that thing like, "Am I going to be able to pull this off?" Well, what am I gonna do with this feeling? The more nervous you get, the more worried you get about it. So you pay attention to what you might need.

Photography's like this baby that needs to be fed all the time. It's always hungry.

The movie industry is one big collaboration. Music gives me that freedom to create things straight from my heart and my mind.

Whatever the source of emotion that drives me to create, I want to give it a form which has some connection with the visible world, even if it is only to wage war on that world....I want my paintings to be able to defend themselves to resist the invader, just as though there were razor blades on all surfaces so no one could touch them without cutting his hands.