Sydney Pollack Quotes

The biggest thing I have realized was that you have to choose your collaborators very carefully, and that not everybody can like you. The process of filmmaking is so difficult, there's no point in doing it unless you can do it the way you want.

There's no such thing as an actor giving positive criticism to a director. The minute you say 'Don't you think it would look nicer...', that director's going to hate your guts. Particularly if it's a good idea.

I do a film because I like the story and I want to give life to a character - I don't necessarily have to agree with the director.

Many times I felt like I'd do better than what the director did, but some of them got a little discouraged because they didn't have full charge of making the film, and sometimes there'd be battles of egos.

As the days progressed, I felt as if YNK' was my first film. That is because the director was hellbent on perfectionism. He was insistent about getting the best out of me.

It is the director's vision, and as actors, we are just extensions of that.

Politics is not about winning for the sake of winning.

My ex-husband is very involved in raising our beautiful children. We're very lucky because we both grew up in working families in middle America. We're on the same page that way.

The only reason the Protestants and Catholics have given up the idea of universal domination is because they've realized they can't get away with it.

The individual and society have waged a relentless and bloody battle for ages, each striving for supremacy, because each was blind to the value and importance of the other.

There is no way for two leaders to function together at any one time

American and Chinese civilizations are antagonistic; they cannot live and thrive and both survive on the same soil. One or the other must perish.

It's the director's job to piece together my performance, his interpretation of my takes, each take, and string them together and make a statement. I'm red paint on a canvas for a painter.

It ends up being a terrible movie if you try and please everyone.

I don't want to constantly be making sacrifices. It feels like it's really difficult for the films I dream about making to turn up.

If I wanted to have total control and be a dictator, I would do ice sculpture in my basement. If I want to make a movie, I'm going to work with 500 people, and I will have to work with their strength and their weakness.

When Gene makes a movie, the people who work on it have such a love for him that the set is always a happy place.

When I do a film, usually I work from my director. That's my boss. The director is interpreting the writer's vision, and we all interpret it, and they create their own vision as well.

I have to see a definitive cut of the film before I even start thinking about the music, I tell the director what my feelings are and what I would like to do. He accepts what I say or discusses it or destroys it. Eventually, we have to find a compromise.

Movies require so many moving pieces to align that it really is a miracle that anything is made!

If a director can't figure out what they might get from me or whether he or she wants to work with me based on what I've done, then I can't tell them anything more than what they don't know already.

If I'm gonna spend however long it takes to make a movie, give up 14 hours a day for however many weeks or months, then it's very important for me to know that I'm working with people who I respect and enjoy and that we're going for something together.

Essentially, it is the director who is the creative head of a film. The final authority on all decisions lies with the director. That is how it should be. And then other team members can give their creative inputs.

Even if the two parents have decided they can't stand the sight of each other anymore, they can still back each other up, cover for each other, and fill in the blanks for each other when it comes to their cocreated children, so that neither of them has to feel as if they're having to do it all.

There are interesting tensions that will naturally occur with any relationship. No matter what setting, what era, the tension is very, very real. It's basic human tension.