Abbas Kiarostami Quotes

For working with non-professional actors, you have to have this particular desire to work with people who are reluctant to play in a movie. I like this relationship. I'm like a recruiter, an employment agency giving someone employment.

After making 'Secretary,' it was a real shock to me to learn that some directors just aren't interested in what actors have to say. They just don't want to collaborate.

Scorsese is a fan of improv and is always pushing actors to think up something that would make the scene more fun. He loves any idea that helps the scene be alive.

As a director, what matters is how you penetrate the soul of the person in front of the camera and let the actor blur the boundaries between the character and the person themselves. In order to achieve that, I try to make people feel at ease, to be mindless of problems and be skinless and give everything to the camera.

If I had cast someone else who didn't have that kind of timing, it would have been leaden and one note. But Ann [Morgan Guilbert] made her really human and really funny without being caricatured or over the top. She feels like a real person.

Working with [Robert] De Niro taught me a lot about being an actor's director.

Alejandro Amenabar is a different kind of director than I lot of the directors I've asked for. He really asks you to enter his dream as opposed to, you know, a guy like Sidney Lumet or something is going to ask you to create a character almost like a documentary. He wants you to make the people really real and he's going to capture it like a documentarian.

I would love to work with Ron Howard. I think he is brilliant. I love the stories that he chooses. Theyre always very personal and intense. He loves a lot of emotion, and hes so well equipped to pull all of that out of the actors. I really love that kind of thing and I think thats what movies should be about.

I love Kimberly Peirce. Incredibly intense is a good way of describing her. Brutally honest. Really sharp. She's a director for actors. That's what she's best at, sitting down with an actor and just getting to the heart of what a scene is. And getting to the heart of not just what the scene is and the character is, but what you are, and how to build that bridge between the "me" and the character, and those emotions.

As a director, I have to feel realism from actors, and they can't be plastic. The words for me are secondary, but the chemistry between the actors is most important. However, you have to go by the script because it's related to production, otherwise you will not finish your project. My background are acting, film production, directing, and I studied them for many years. Keep in mind that you need many other skills when you are starting any film project related to real life.

There's nothing wrong with sending a quick note if you're busy or just want to flirt, but it's hard to have any real interaction over text. In the buffet of communication, text messaging should be a side dish, not the entree.

John Huston was the kind of director that totally left you alone. Not every actor always does it right, every time, but most of the time he was re-directing someone. He was making tight adjustments, and not even in terms of interpretation because he knew that by the time that the character had been filmed... well, he got it right when he cast you.

The moment I do any puppy dog acting, I think the joke is dead. It's in the truth of how I play it, and the real painful honesty that I approach my performance with.

The real trick for me as a director is to make sure that people don't start pushing because the harder you push as a perform the less funny it becomes.

Actors are inherently self-centered. We're trained to focus on who I am. What do I want? Who is in my way? How do I get this? That's how we're trained. Unfortunately, that sometimes spills over into real life. But it's all very subjective. You just try to portray someone beyond the surface, the different layers.

You'll need to suffer to make any real art.

I'm pretty much a character-driven film director and my movies are smaller. I don't do a lot of coverage. I use lots of master shots.

You work with each individual actor as you perceive their needs to be. It's something that you've figured out in the weeks of pre-production.

I love people like Renée Zellweger who aren't afraid to look unattractive and really put themselves into a character role and to really be an actress instead of just thinking "Am I on-screen pouting and looking beautiful?" because that's not really what it's about.

I want to talk about things that are tangible and real to me, but I also want to do them in a way that's poetic and artistic.

The trick [in comedy] is always to figure out how real you're playing it and how real it's supposed to feel. That's a hard thing to figure out.

Real art is illumination, it adds stature to life.

Love opens the doors into everything, as far as I can see, including and perhaps most of all, the door into one's own secret, and often terrible and frightening, real self.

People have their own reasons for dying. It might look simple, but it never is. It's just like a rock. What's above ground is only a small part of it. But if you start pulling, it keeps coming and coming. The human mind dwells deep in darkness. Only the person himself knows the real reason, and maybe not even then.

We're not like a nostalgia act, or the normal classic rock act - we're a really good musical organization, ... You're going to hear some blues, some jazz, a little of everything. The guys in the band are great musicians. When we play, we're there for real. It's not about posing, strutting in tights, that kind of stuff. It's all about music, and I've always respected my audience that way.