Todd Haynes Quotes

I like to make films where I learn along the way, like the audience.

I think each movie-making process is a very exhausting and satisfying and fulfilling experience for me.

Each production is its own experience.

I think everything you do, whether it's low budget things when you're first starting out or full feature films or when you're working with Hollywood, you're always learning, all the time.

I know the movies that I've liked, and I know the experience that they've given me, so the goal is always to try to create a movie that I would like myself and that would knock me out, challenge me or intrigue me in some way. That's been my criteria for figuring out what I want to do, or also when I'm writing something or creating a scene.

Their films would probably be better if they'd seen a few more films, which runs counter to this idiotic theory that you run the risk of being influenced if you see too much.

The only reason you make a movie is not to make or set out to do a good or a bad movie, it's just to see what you learn for the next one.

One of the things I've tried to do in my career is really write different kinds of books, so I'm able to broaden people's expectations of what I'm allowed to do.

I try to make films that I find exciting. It makes me want to get out of bed at five in the morning, have my make-up done and play for the rest of the day.

Writers to some extent are childish, and it's at the childish level that one really engages with any experience. What really moves you is at the very personal, childish level of the imagination. My business is the imagination, and my imagination is engaged by Asia.

So much of what we do as artists is a combination of personal experience and imagination, and how that all creeps into your work is not so linear.

'Frances Ha' is the closest final product to what I had in my head of any movie I've made. I'm not entirely even sure why that is.

I've always considered myself a filmmaker who writes stuff for himself to do.

With each film, I get more and more involved and it's more and more time-consuming. Also, I like to break myths and people's preconceived ideas. My characters have always stood for something, have always had an opinion, although they've never really rebelled.

The thing I really love about film is there's a really big sense of teamwork, and everyone has to do their job to the best of their ability to make the film work in the first place.

In my experience a painting is not made with colors and paint at all. I don't know what a painting is; who knows what sets off even the desire to paint?

Obviously I'd love to work with any of these great directors because every time I've worked with them I've gained a tremendous amount as an actor. Each director has his own way of pushing you towards improving yourself.

Every film is a crapshoot. It's a mystery when a movie comes together. I've never been able to figure it out. I don't know how I make my choices. The only thing you can do is know there's something about a character that you really want to experience.

Each film I make changes me in some way. When I start the picture I'm one person and by the time I finish I'm another.

I've discovered just how symbiotic the relationship is between writers, directors and actors. They ask the same questions and strip down texts in exactly the same way.

When I made my first film, I didn't think of it as directing, so it wasn't like I set out to become a director.

I'm always dictated to be what I want to do, and I have a love affair with every movie I've done, and some of them have turned out good, and some of them have turned out not so good. But regardless, the making of them, or that love affair, has always been a great experience.

The goal with 'Alpha' was to run towards the cliches and then to break through them, and that doesn't change depending on the medium.

When you have a film that's acclaimed, there's a tendency to go big or get serious or something, but I had an impulse to do the opposite.

When I begin working on a production, I don't really think about my previous album or albums. I try to have a real creative process.