Clint Eastwood Quotes

I always wanted 'Sideways' to be like a great 1960s Italian film.

I was overjoyed when I was offered the title role in 'Well Done Abba.' I was ready for the role even before I heard the story because you don't ask questions when it is Shyam Benegal's film. It is the chance of a lifetime.

Sometimes you do feel a script that glows in your hand the moment you start reading it. By page four of Shakespeare in Love, I said, 'I have to be in this movie.'

Being a kid growing up with Kurosawa films and watching Sergio Leone movies just made me love what it could do to you, and how it could influence you - make you dream.

I watch movies all the time, so it's hard to pick certain specific directors that have inspired me in the aggregate.

When I do a novel, I don't really use the script, I use the book; when I did Apocalypse Now, I used Heart of Darkness. Novels usually have so much rich material.

I gravitated to acting out of a mixture of instinct, naivete and opportunity.

To be honest, the real reason I did 'Drive' was because of Nicolas Winding Refn, the director.

There were many films made for both cinema and television, and in general I don't connect them very much with our books. I have one favorite: 'The Man on the Roof' by director Bo Widerberg, which was based on 'The Abominable Man.'

I'm going to do an adaptation of the Italian film, Bread and Tulips. I really like that film.

I am an internationally produced playwright.

The first film that I can remember seeing where, like, I just couldn't stop watching it - and it didn't necessarily make me want to be a director because I was so young, but it made me know that that's what I wanted to be doing - was 'Alien.' And I saw that when I was probably just over 10 years old.

Usually, I think, every film I've made has been a book, and I've always read it.

I never wanted to do Shakespeare; I never liked watching it, it's always frightened me, and I've never been any good at it. But I really wanted to work with the director Tim Carroll and Mark Rylance.

I've definitely become more aware and conscious of what directors I'm working with because it's so important. The director is really more than half the battle of the film. You really rely on that. That's become really, really important to me, for sure.

The movies that made me want to make movies were action movies, and thrillers, and Kurosawa films, you know, where you have an opportunity every day to shoot it in an unusual way. I was looking for something like that.

In general, we like to shoot Breaking Bad like a modern day Western, and Sergio Leone is one of my all-time favorite directors.

Do you imagine Sergio Leone with a philosophy? Come on! He was a primitive of movies, a great director on set.

I haven't read a lot of Westerns. But I wrote a Western. The influences were all cinematic.

You can recognize almost immediately if the film you're watching is the product of some kind of a hive mind or the result of a personal vision and genuine collaborations. 'Manchester by the Sea' reminds us of the potential of the latter and, for that reason, is the kind of work that makes me, as a filmmaker, want to continue. It's inspiring.

Stephen Frears is brilliant and has made movies that inspired me for my whole life.

I think I saw 'Rushmore' my senior year in high school. You know, Wes Anderson and Owen Wilson, there's such a voice to those movies. It's not like 'Die Hard' where it's like, 'Oh, this is an adventure. It just happened.' It's like you can hear the voice. I was like, 'Oh, I want to do that.'

Kurosawa is my hero, and I've taught courses on his films, and I love what he does, and 'Rashomon' is, I think, his second greatest film after 'Ikiru.'

Some people have iconic directors in their mind, or they want to make particular styles of films they have seen before. I think this is a waste of time and energy.

One of the bad things about being a filmmaker, about being me, is I can hardly read a book anymore because every time I read something, I have a poaching mentality, like, 'Oh, can this be a movie?'