Edward Norton Quotes

The business has changed, and some people can keep talking about theatrical in these wondrous terms - it will survive, but it becomes narrower what you can make. So the films I'm most interested in, studios - or even the independents - aren't making them. I'm mostly interested in people.

As long as there's really good actors that use their clout to support fringe films, whatever genre it is, they'll still get made.

I don't make movies because I think audiences will want to go see them.

I think making small movies reminds you of the effort. When you make big movies, the effort is to fight for freedom. When you make small movies, the effort is making the day, making the budget, and it's great, too.

What we love that 'The Way Back' is not subsidized, it's alive and kicking. And if I can't make the kind of film that I want to make, then the hell with it, I've had a great run. But I'm more concerned with the younger people coming up that want to make this kind of film.

People always ask why I don't make independent movies. I do make independent movies - I just make them at Sony and Paramount.

You do these movies, you give it out to the world and you really have no idea how people are going to react to you.

Whatever field you can do that, that's where you want to do it, and I think that's why people like David Fincher and Ridley Scott are interested in it, too, because when you sit down on a meeting in HBO and they're like, "More, more." You're just like, "Oh yeah, I love this." Sometimes it's a little harder in film. I think also it's a great audience, take advantage of it. It's a great audience.

I think the tools were always available, for decades and decades, to make your own film and be creative. I don't think people had to wait for YouTube to do this type of small project. YouTube, I think it's great. I have this idiotic satisfaction. And I think there's a bit of that in YouTube. You share, true, but it's centralized, and it's already sort of controlled. I'm more for something that's not a centralized medium. Like doing your own film and screening it yourself. You cannot control people doing that.

If I can make the movies I want, people are going to watch it how they're going to watch it.

The quality of mainstream cinema has changed. A lot of independent voices feel they can leave everything behind and make independent films.

Independent films are where you really get to cut your teeth and have some fun and do the things that mainstream Hollywood doesn't want to do.

I'd love to do more independent films.

All I want is the same opportunities as the filmmakers I grew up admiring. But you know, I've had lots of amazing opportunities to do the movies I wanted to do. If I could write my future, I'd want to keep making character-based films that can make use of my voice as a filmmaker.

When I came out to Hollywood, I discovered the perfect place for my creative madness - Cannon Pictures.

It's nice when you're working in Hollywood and there's a movie you'd like to see that no one is making anymore. You make it yourself.

I thought that making movies was drab. I'd lived through that. And I didn't want to use my parents, ever... They didn't want to push me into this business.

I read an interview where someone said, 'It's a shame that anyone can make a movie now,' and I feel the exact opposite.

Hollywood is a town; it's not a medium. And cinema is a medium you can practice anywhere.

I like the intimacy of independent films and I like the idea that people aren't being paid necessarily as much money as some one on a studio film.

With directing, you always have three or four things constantly on the go. It's a tough industry and a tough time, particularly if you're doing things a little outside the box or independent features.

When you make a movie, you can only make the movie that you would want to see.

I get a lot of independent films from people who are starting out.

I believe in making movies very inexpensively; I think that way too much money is spent on making movies. Enough movies are being made, but not enough experimental ones.

I started movies in 1980. I don't think anything's changed for the best. When it comes down to certain technologies and certain things that have afforded more people to maybe have a shot at making a movie or something like that, that's good. But you also end up with 50,000 times the amount of bad movies, because now anybody can make a bad movie.