Kenneth Lonergan Quotes

There's a heresy which is perpetuated by film school that to be a great director you have to write your own stuff.

I love working with actors. I love visual things. I always intended to be a writer who directs and a director who writes.

In my opinion, the motion picture is the greatest medium of expression ever invented. It embraces all the other arts. The films that have the greatest unity, the greatest overall strength, and give the most satisfaction to the viewer, have been those in which a guiding hand was imposed in every section of the film's many divisions.

For me, I see filmmaking as art.

Well, I think that when you direct a movie or write it. And in the case of the two movies I did, I wrote and directed, they occupy a special place for you.

I think I'm drawn to films more as a director with a directorial mind even as an actor. I make movies to make the films, not to act.

Writing and directing your own film, for me, has been the best experience of my life.

I am really looking for a chance to direct. I feel like that's kind of the next frontier for me. I know that it's really hard to do, but I feel like I want to have a chance to try and translate something I've written and try and get a tone across.

I have considered the directing, actually. Not so much the writing. That is not really interesting, but the directing is really interesting to me.

I knew that I'd end up directing because I'm so hands-on with my films.

I'd love to direct more.

I think films are bigger than structure.

I'm a storyteller - that's the chief function of a director. And they're moving pictures, let's make 'em move!

Directing was easy for me because I was a writer director and did all my directing when I wrote the screenplay.

When you shoot a movie, the camera is always taking, taking, taking and not giving anything back.

I feel like I'm a filmmaker; I don't feel I need to yell action and cut.

A filmmaker has almost the same freedom as a novelist has when he buys himself some paper.

Now I'm kind of established as a director, I much prefer directing to writing.

I want to get into producing and writing more for myself - setting up my own films and seeing what kind of personal touch I can put on movies, as opposed to just being in them.

Filmmaking can be a fine art.

Going to directing wasn't a reaction away from acting as much as it was a move towards something I always wanted to do. Ever since I was a kid, I was interested in the camera and how it worked and why one director would place it in this part of the room and then another would place it in that part of the room.

I try and let the film do the talking.

I still want to direct. That's my main love, and that comes from being obsessed with subtleties and people.

I want to act for the rest of my life - and I also want to pursue directing. Watching Bill Condon direct 'Twilight' kind of made me think, 'OK yeah, I really want to do this now.' This idea that you can make an image in your head and be in full control of how it comes out - I thought that was really cool.

Film is a living, breathing thing. It's very delicate, and you have to listen and watch for what it tells you.