Gus Van Sant Quotes

Actors always feel more comfortable when there's an actor directing, in terms of vocabulary and breaking down a scene.

Good directors can bring certain things out of you, with their intensity or gentleness or sensitivity or understanding. They can make an actor feel he can do no wrong.

When I go on the set, I'm so rushed. When I see the actors at rehearsal, when I love it, I want to keep the mood - my mood and the actors' mood also. So I have to push the crew faster. I don't want to lose the mood.

If a script comes together, and you end up liking the people who are part of it, that's when you can make magic happen. It's a huge combination of trying to find something you think you can deliver on and a director you think you can collaborate with to make a good picture.

A script is only as good as the director who's making it.

I want to act, I want to write, and I need to follow good directors.

You have to be talentedly insecure in order to be a good actress. And then it's the director's job to make you more miserable and get a good take.

I think what makes a good actor's director is the same thing that makes a good director. Acting is just one of the trades necessary to make a movie.

All the other guys I think had a scream on Lock, Stock. They just had a laugh and a crack, and thought it would never come out; they were just having a good time. On this one, I felt that.

As a director, it became important to hear that specific role read by that specific actor, and you hear the chemistry, or you don't hear the chemistry. So I'm not so bothered by the audition process anymore; in fact, I use it. It's a time for the actor to actually get to the know the director and the producers a little bit, too.

He's very alive in a scene. He's a very good actor to act with. Even though through most of the picture he's blind, there are many places early in the picture I got to be with him before he was blind. Like convincing him in the office to do the picture.

I'd like to be a director who gives my actors complete freedom while collaborating with them to find performances.

As a director, you see something in someone; you know it's there, you just got to go get it. You do that with any actor. That's your job.

Once I sign up for a film, I just go by the director's instructions.

The experience of shooting a film is about the script, the captain of the ship who is the director, and the way they push their actors and teams to give their best. It's not about the language and the region.

I love to choose the right actors. It's kind of a pleasure to work with them and watch them imbue your concepts that you write.

There are directors, and I think this is true of all directors, it would be true if I was a director - If the actor didn't want to do what I was suggesting, I would let him do it his way, and then I would say to him, "Just give me one where you do what the director wants", and that, of course, is the take that's used.

I was lucky, because Ewan McGregor had already been shooting with Roman Polanski for about a month before I got role. And he did a faultless impersonation of what it was going to be like. So when direction happened, it was like, "Oh yeah. That's what Ewan said was going to happen." And so it was a little bit less debilitating than it might have been.

To be on set with Tom Hiddlestone and Hugh Laurie is just fantastic. But during 'Homeland,' I was on set with Claire Danes and Damian Lewis, so I'm used to working with big hitters.

As actors, we need to do our parts exactly the way they have visualised it, because if we don't, we have to keep doing it many times over.

Denis Villeneuve is such a wonderful filmmaker. I just feel nothing but grateful to have worked with him and to have a chance to learn his language of filming.

Certainly there is a lot of collaboration, but there is also a lot of clarity that has to be had in the vision that you have for the film when you come in as the director. Without that, there's no bullseye to be aiming for.

The only thing that I can contribute as director is to work with the performers in a way that brings out the drama.

The hardest thing about a musical is making sure everybody is working on the same damn show. That is the monster.

You cannot sit at home at act. You need a story, a director, you need people to believe in you, to put you through that journey. It is not something you can attain within yourself.