Viggo Mortensen Quotes

Filmmaking is a much more collaborative thing than literature, so you know you're going to be working with a group of people at the start. You know it's going to be a compromise.

I love working with directors who have good taste. It's incredible when a director can say something and things open up for you. I went to The University of North Carolina School of the Arts, and some of my best experiences on sets have been working with other alums.

Everybody is always trying to make the best movie they can. It's a process.

I depend on good editors and a good director.

As a director, you try to find what is creative.

When you are acting, you are just one piece of the puzzle. You don't see how everything fits together. It feels like you have less authorship over the entire product. In directing, you take the entire picture into account, so you're challenged in a different way.

I give as much as I can, and it's up to someone else to turn it into a movie. Good luck to you!

At our best, it's a good experience but we do 22 episodes a year, so there are some clunkers.

The writing is really hard. You're alone. It really pulls it out of you. You pull it out of your head. But when you're a director, you're shopping - you're picking this actor, you're picking this scene. It's like the most intense kinetic high-speed shopping of all time. You sit in a chair and it will all come rushing at you like a wind tunnel.

I read an interview with Mark Wahlberg, and he was like, 'I might read a script and love it, but it's all about the filmmaker.' I think that's a good lesson for me.

With directing, you've got to find something and drag it up from its inception, and I'm at the early stages of doing that again. There's something all-consuming and addictive about that.

It's one of the most beautiful things in the world, to go off and make a film. At the heart of it, making a film - it's pretend. It's a silly thing to do. But it can be important, and to have that experience with people you love is one of the best things you can do.

I wouldn't not want to be a director and write as I wouldn't not to want to be a writer and direct movies.

More often than not, the experience of shooting the movie has been disappointing and the end product has been a mere shadow of what I hoped it would be. But immersing myself in the story - that's what I like best of all.

I think I've had pretty good experiences for the most part with the people who have directed my screenplays.

Making a movie is a lot of problem solving.

As an actor you have to bring to the table your creative input. But when a director like Ridley Scott says I want you to do this this way, you know when he gets to the editing room he has a reason for it. It's like watching a masterpiece.

I enjoy the acting, but I didn't plan on that. It fell into my lap, and I'm having a lot of fun with it, but I'm definitely moving towards directing because I'm naturally a writer, and I think a good director edits, writes, and has acted a little bit. He's done a little bit of everything, and that's what I'm trying to do.

Directing is creating a whole. You're able to combine different elements and create a film that is unique and true to your vision.

There are many aspects to directing that have a romantic place in people's minds.

I don't make movies because I love to act. I make movies because I like to make movies, and I like to be a part of that process.

I'd made these experimental films but I thought the major chore of a filmmaker was to relate to actors.

I want to act, I want to write, and I need to follow good directors.

Publishing in a way doesn't have a lot to do with writing, and writing doesn't have a lot to do with publishing.

Filmmaking is a miracle of collaboration.