Derek Cianfrance Quotes

Make acting seem real and as if it weren't acting. Just make it real.

Being yourself is the most important element for me, because, if you're trying to be something you're not, the audience will pick up on that.

The most important thing in acting is honesty. If you can fake that, you've got it made.

I don't have a desire to make films that have cardboard cut-out or Hollywood stand-in replicas of humans. I need the real deal.

I'm into sincerity in music and sincerity in art. If it doesn't feel true, I don't want to do it. Things that are too dramatic scare me. I think that's why I don't always fit into the world of performing arts.

Over-articulation kills the character because it becomes one thing and that is not how it happens in life and it is not beautiful to watch on screen either.

Self-expression is my goal, I want to be real with my feelings. Singing and dancing and all the joy that goes with performing come from my heart. If I can't feel it, I won't do it.

The first duty in life is to be as artificial as possible. What the second duty is no one has as yet discovered.

I try to be genuine. I try to be real. It's such a subjective thing, but I try to convey an emotion.

My ultimate goal is to try to be real. It just so happens that I'm usually more happy than sad when I'm writing. And in general I think that life is pretty great, and it's cool to be here, so that comes through in my music. I don't have a dismal outlook, but I don't aim to make positive music. It's just what I am.

I think it's important to be authentic to who you are, and if you're inauthentic at all, people smell that from a mile away.

Sorrow makes for sincerity, I think.

They asked me, How did you learn to sing the blues like that? How did you learn to sing that heavy? I just opened my mouth and that's what I sounded like. You can't make up something that you don't feel. I didn't make it up. I just opened my mouth and it existed.

If you really want a life which has no boredom in it, drop all masks, be true. Sometimes it will be difficult, I know, but it is worth it. Be true.

I don't believe that you can give the same performance every take. It's physically impossible, so why bother? If you don't do what is happening at that moment, then it's not real. Then you're holding something back.

It helps so much being on location. It's like the difference between performing for the rectangle of the camera versus a world being created and then the camera finds things within that. There's a huge difference in that, because what it takes away is performance. You don't feel like performing. You're just kind of doing it. You're existing.

I would rather give full vent to all human loves and disappointments, and take a chance on being corny, than die a smartass.

I try not to "perform." I try to come on stage and be myself, to sing the way I would in a room by myself, to interact with the audience the way I would relate to them if we were in my kitchen drinking tea and making up silly songs. Maybe the way to get past the fear of being ourselves is simply to try it more often.

Be as honest with yourself as possible, and try to make friends with people who like you for you - not an iteration of who you are, or who you think you should be - but really like you for you. And when you're creating whatever you want to do in your life, just try to create and put out the truest version of yourself into the world.

One of the things that defines a country song for me is that it's honest. It's not putting on a tuxedo to go eat at the Burger King. It's about a song being emotionally true to itself.

When the heart dares to speak, it needs no preparation.

I'm just flowing through, when I see things, I talk about 'em. And it's cool. I don't want any title. I just say what I say, and hopefully somebody gets it. I'm not perfect, and I'm just here and trying to make a dollar, and being real at the same time.

Goddamn it, FEELING is what I like in art, not CRAFTINESS and the hiding of feelings.

The world isn't scandalized by our freedom but by our fakeness.