Edward Norton Quotes

My analysis of the situation was that Roman Polanski wasn't trying to break us down or get a performance out of us by destroying us. He was absolutely, very simply, trying to recreate this clear picture in his head. And the pictures he creates are absolutely perfect, and they are exactly what he saw in his head.

I don't have a favorite director just like I don't have a favorite color or I don't have a favorite food. I like everything.

In the best of all possible worlds, directors would obsess about the quality of their storytelling, and not the details of their technical methods.

I want to get to the point where people say of my work, that man feels deeply.

Directors go their whole career without being able to tell personal stories and to work with a cast as talented as they are.

When I read the script it was extraordinary and to work with Yorgos [Lanthimos] again was amazing.

Every director works differently but one thing's important: they must have a vision. If they don't have a vision I don't care how they work.

I really loved it because it really informed his way of seeing my character and the story. If you look closely he always had this metaphor of an egg, of a little chick pecking her way out of a shell, and in one scene in the kitchen there are all these white plates on a wall and then in the middle there is a yellow plate so even that looks like an egg. And a lot of the furniture was almost sculpted in that way as well. It was really cool to see that.

As an actor, most of the time, you only have so much say in how, what and where things go. As a director, you really get to paint a bigger picture. You have many more brushes to use.

As a means of supporting experiential element in film, once I begin to work on a particular movie I consider myself to be the tool of the director.

I think one of the things you have to be aware of as an actor is that if you come on the set and see the director standing there mouthing all the words while a scene is going on, that's usually a very bad sign because it means the director has already shot the scene in his head. He knows exactly the rhythm and the nuances that he wants delivered in the line and you're not going to dissuade him.

There's no point in it unless it's a story that you really want to tell. It's a nebulous job. Unless you're doing it well, you're not doing anything. And there are a few of those. It's perfectly possible to be a passenger on a film set because if somebody else has written it, you can make nothing of that role and that's exactly what bad directors do.

One of the wonderful things about being an actor is that every director is different.

I'm like a movie director, so wherever I feel that I need to go over this type of beat, that's what I'm going to do, that's where I'm going to go.

He [Oliver Stone] is great. I really like working with directors who know what they want and aren't afraid to tell you, "Do it like this. Don't do it like that."

I really enjoy talking to actors or filmmakers that enjoy that process of creating and how they go about doing it.

I love photography and art-directing is something that I really would enjoy to do.

I look back at my career when I was younger and can connect what I was going through at the time with the characters I was playing. I see the similarities in them reflecting on my life.

What I like in pictures whether by an old director or a young director is when I have the feeling he or she is really using the capacity of film.

I am fine, though it is hard to think of what kind of work to make at this point, other than decorative, escapist or abstract. I suppose I'll explore one or all of these things.

As a director you want to have actors, not only surpassing themselves, but also going somewhere, going different places.

I've always just wanted to tell stories, and create stuff, and I think "Creator" or "Director" would probably be the two words that I go to first.

I think if I were asked to do as many as fifty takes, I would assume the director had no idea what he wanted, and was just hoping, eventually, to see it.

Being a creative person. It's so much more rewarding when you find things on your own, to live whatever the writers are writing or to display what the director is looking for. You are the thing that everybody uses to get the story out.

I think the work is always going to be much better when it's important and personal to you.