Barry Levinson Quotes

J. J. Abrams is a director that I've admired for a long time, from the very first scripts he wrote - including 'Regarding Henry,' which I was in.

Hollywood is still the mecca for good or bad, but it isn't the beginning or end for filmmaking.

I don't think the competition's so rough, within the majority of movies made in Hollywood.

Big feature films are another world.

I consider myself a student of Hollywood.

I would love to work with Quentin Tarantino - he's my number one. My ultimate. I would love to work with Paul Thomas Anderson, Alexander Payne - Pedro Almodovar wouldn't be too shabby. There are so many good directors, but those are some of my favorites.

Hollywood, for me, is the studios. It's a way to produce. It's a different way to make movies, and I never took part in that.

When I started working as a writer-director, that's when he became Paul Thomas Anderson and I became Paul W.S. Anderson. Neither of us can write and direct an American movie under the name Paul Anderson.

When I went to Sundance back in 1998, indie film was all the rage, and Miramax was throwing down five or six million dollars for several films each year. Those were the salad days of indie film, and those days are over. I'm not out there worrying too much about it.

The first movie I produced was a movie that Joel Schumacher wrote and directed called 'Amateur Night at the Dixie Bar and Grill.'

The other thing being at UCLA was just being in California and around the movie business. Which I honestly believe, and I've told this to screenwriters, you have to do. You have to be there in order to write or direct movies.

At times I think I actually hate Hollywood. I have many acquaintances there, but few friends.

Be passionate about your [movie] material, because you're going to have to overcome a lot of "No's," and it's that passion that fuels the fight.

Over in Hollywood they almost made a great picture, but they caught it in time.

I had a great time working on the movies, both the major movies I've done. I've had a great time. I like the people in Hollywood a lot.

Hollywood is responsible for some of the greatest and worst movies of all time!

Hollywood was invented by hoodlums from central Europe. And today a Hollywood lawyer is not a hoodlum. He's a bureaucrat.

Movies are a whole different ball-game, now. It's much more of a business - very scientific.

The upper echelon of the movie industry is easier to deal with and the work is much easier to accomplish because of this generosity of spirit and confidence that they instill in the group around them.

It's only a movie, and, after all, we're all grossly overpaid.

Hollywood is ten million dollars worth of intricate and high ingenious machinery functioning elaborately to put skin on baloney.

Writing a good movie brings a writer about as much fame as steering a bicycle. It gets him, however, more jobs. If his movie is bad it will attract only critical tut-tut for him. The producer, director and stars are the geniuses who get the hosannas when it's a hit. Theirs are also the heads that are mounted on spears when it's a flop.

Euthanasia is legal in Hollywood. They just kill the film if it doesn't succeed immediately.

Always remember the famous adage about the movie business: You can't make a living, you can only get rich.

Once your acting job is over, you just hope they have a good editor and they put together a good film.