Lee Daniels Quotes

I have a theory that most people disagree with. I really feel that acting for film and acting for the stage are two different crafts. I think that they share things in common. But I liken it to a painter switching over to photography.

Well, I'm... first and foremost I'm a theater guy and everything that I know comes from the theater.

In TV, sometimes you get lost in the fog of the scene, and when you're working with such good actors, they can bring you into the scene.

From my earliest days as an actress, I had always been drawn to learning the director's job.

I was really nervous working with actors, since I come from a photography background.

My tools, my medium, include pictures and live actors.

I did theatre a lot when I was a kid. Then I went to acting school in New York. I did a lot of behind the scenes in college. I wanted to learn while I had the time. I studied theatre and film in different capacities.

Working on a play is a vibrant and collaborative business. Everyone from the choreographer to the music director to the director to the writers work together toward the same goal, and everyone chimes in on everything.

I always envisioned working in film and in theater. Theater and film are not, they're not in any way substitutable. What I love about theater is so different from what I love about film, and I enjoy the craft of both.

My background is in theater. I was a theater major in college.

Directing is very close to choreography; you deal with space, time, emotions, lighting, making beautiful images.

To make films is as boring as watching paint dry - you usually have to do little tiny bits here and there. You go off waiting for lighting, you come back - the energy dies. You hope you can find someone who can keep it going.

I'm constantly involved in theater, looking at theater, trying to do work in theater, support theater. And that's kind of my creative passion.

Theater has always been most important to my psyche.

It's hard to incorporate dance into movies I think.

My whole background is theater, and theater is to some degree presentational.

I was a directing student and a production design student at Carnegie Mellon. I went in as a production design student and became a directing student.

I want to do theatre and film and direct my own things and develop.

I did theater at Spelman until I graduated from there, and I got to work with such luminous actresses as Diana Sands in 'Macbeth.'

I feel that being an actor is a front-row seat into seeing how everybody else makes their movies. Basically, being in the trenches for ten years is like a college-level course in filmmaking if not more. It feels like every director I work with and every set that I visit as an actor, I see someone else's definition of filmmaking.

A lot of the time with an independent production, you go onto the set, and you rehearse it in front of the crew, and at that point, the cinematographer takes over. You start accommodating the camera instead of the camera accommodating you.

Some directors are interested in acting, and others are only interested in cranes and moving the camera.

That theater community that comes with acting and being in the theater is second nature to me. It's in my blood.

Theatre is an actor's medium while a film is the director's.

The script is so important... Even if you have a huge entourage or big lighting trucks, the most important thing is the space between the actor and the camera.