Tom Hanks Quotes

All these directors, and I would include the Coen brothers and Quentin, have a very unique vision of what they want. They listen to ideas and make people feel like everyone is making the film.

Every director's so different. Everybody has their own modus operandi and I love getting to know different directors in the way they work. David O. Russell is very exciting to be with because he's got a mind like quicksilver.

My approach to working in movies is to empower the director to have power over me and to really support his vision because he's the guy, at the end of the day, who's going to put it all together.

One of the things I wanted to do was direct. There've been a couple of times that a director will walk up and say something to me, and all it does is make me mad. Inside I'll go, 'Well, that wasn't helpful at all.'

When you agree to work with a filmmaker, it's important that you accept their world. It's an adventure. I like that. I throw myself into the director's arms, into their universe.

It's so hard to find a director who, when you look at their body of work, you like everything.

I have the most respect for Rick. You're always going to see a Shameik Moore and Rick Famuyiwa film.

Tim also has enough confidence so that it always looks like a Tim Burton film, but it really is collaborative. You're allowed to do it your way but of course he's always going to choose his way.

You know as a director what you want, but the film is smarter than you, the film says no, the film says there's something more here.

There's a whole system in Hollywood where the director never speaks to the studio, but I like to engage them in a discussion. I listen.

Nobody ever starts out to make a mediocre, commercial film. You always think it's going to be something. And then, once you're done with your shooting, you have no control. You're just done, as an actor.

I've certainly worked with really great directors who haven't acted.

With Kubrick and most film directors, they are in complete control, but one can influence them.

I worked with Steven Spielberg on Amistad... he seemed so very secure in himself that he let me do things.

The key is working with great directors. A film is so many different people and all their talents, but particularly the directors, because of the idiosyncrasies of that person.

I loved working with Stephen Frears. He's a really fantastic director. He knows what he wants and how to get it.

As the days progressed, I felt as if YNK' was my first film. That is because the director was hellbent on perfectionism. He was insistent about getting the best out of me.

No film ever ends up exactly as you would like it to, but with minor exceptions, THX came out pretty much as I had visualized it, thanks to some excellent assistance -- and a whole lot of luck.

I had heard all sorts of stories about Woody Allen's directing - directorial approach. And some of them turned out to be myth, but one of them was that he doesn't rehearse, and another was that he doesn't really direct. If he doesn't like it... he cuts it out of the movie or even replaces you. And he doesn't talk to you.

As an actor, you can go in, and you give your best performance, but if you hand that performance to ten different directors and ten different editors, you get ten different movies.

Films are a director's medium. We're all stemming from the director.

I have always believed that when a film is being made, it has to be the director's vision.

I think that, again, filmmaking is the director's medium in the end, and the best thing a producer can do is stay out of the way and support the director one hundred percent.

A film is made in somebody's head - out of their determination to do it at all.

Film becomes a living organism. After awhile, it begins to tell you what it needs, and you're usually best listening.