Sydney Pollack Quotes

After I directed, when I went back to being an actor, I was like, 'God, this is the life!' Because you only have to concentrate on one thing.

I appreciate my role as an actor much more after I direct because it's just easier.

I'm not a huge kind of visual director. For me, it's all about the acting. There's no greater buzz than working with actors and seeing what they can do and how much they can improve on what you'd written. That will always be on the top of my list. It's a real privilege to see it live before anyone else sees it.

I think I would have been so much in awe of the movie set, the people and what everybody's job was, that I don't know if I would be able to concentrate on the character.

The only actor-director I have worked with in my career is my brother in his film 'Dillagi,' and he got the best out of me.

I really loved making 'Love, Nina.' I was in every scene, which was amazing. Bloody hell, what a job!

I always enjoy shooting for all my films.

Once you turn on the camera, making a movie is making a movie. I don't care if it's $9 million dollars or $50 million dollars. You have bigger toys, bigger set, actors who are better paid, but once you turn on the camera, it's director and performance, and I don't find a big difference.

Steven Spielberg seems to have wanted to be a director from 13. He put his dog in a certain position and made him eat at four o'clock. He liked to direct it. But, to me, directing is tedious. Especially if you're acting in it. And I'm inherently lazy.

I don't think I know enough about acting to direct. You need to be a slight megalomaniac, not where you want to take over the world, but where you want to make every single decision and the buck stops with you. It's an awful lot of stress.

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.

When you are an actor, you have to stay inside this world, but when you are with the crew, on the outside, you are in the dirt, working through all the issues. It's just a different way of working, and I think I preferred it.

I enjoy directing more when I don't have to direct myself. I like when I can just be the director.

It's a lot of fun to be a part of films that you don't exactly know how they're going to turn out.

Eventually, everyone said, Why don't you direct? It would save time. And that's how it started.

I think I'm drawn to films more as a director with a directorial mind even as an actor. I make movies to make the films, not to act.

I love being on set, because I've basically grown up on a set. And now I love to contribute as a director and help steer the ship, if you will.

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.

I've certainly worked with really great directors who haven't acted.

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.

Look, a lot of directors were actors, even if they were unsuccessful actors which I think is helpful. I think it's a really helpful thing for a director to have experienced that. It helps you know how to talk to actors and how to get what you need from them.

I would love to do more films. I really like the whole process of doing that. I like how close you become to everybody.

I guess what I enjoy most is directing, because it incorporates all aspects of filmmaking. Directing is in the same line as acting - both are popularity contests, and in both you're trying to tell a story through the film as a medium.

I'd like to work with any actress from whom I can learn-one who has had many experiences with many directors and is willing to share some of her knowledge with me.