Craig Robinson Quotes

It's funny to see the finished product of a movie, stuff that's so beautiful, and to remember the particulars.

There are so many things that have to go right for a movie to be good that it's a miracle whenever one is.

I don't think know if anything's going to translate anywhere. You're making a movie, you hope it's going to be funny, you can't think about how it's going to go over.

The best feeling I ever get is when I finish a song, and it exists, and it didn't exist before, and now it's there, and it makes me feel a certain way.

I make movies that audiences like, that I'd want to see. That's all.

With 'Pity Party,' it's the first time seeing my vision come to life in front of my face. I'm super happy about it.

A product can turn bad, not the production. When you start a film, you feel it will be great. But sometimes, as it progresses, it fails somewhere. You can't blame anyone for that. You can blame only your own intelligence!

Big movie or small movie, you make this thing, and then you show it to people, and you just hope they like it. You hope it works.

At the end of the day, you are doing the film for the audience.

I do a film because I would love to be a part of it, but I also think from the audience's perspective. Our profession survives because of our audience.

In the film industry you never really know if all the various ingredients will come together - sometimes they do, and sometimes they don't. As an actor, you don't have much control over those things. It's a director's medium in that sense. All you can really do is minimise the risks of being involved in something that might not work and look for something that also suits you.

The last thing I want to do is having someone get behind a Montgomery Clift biopic, and then just do the first script that came out. Sometimes it takes a long time for these things to gestate. And I'm only going to do it if it's the right story that's told for the right reason, and that's relevant to this day and age, as much as it pays homage to who this man was. Should that happen during the time when I'm still young enough to play him, perfect. And if not, hopefully someone else will get to play him because I do think it's an incredible story.

You know, that's the reality, but I always shoot movies for the screen, because that's just the experience that I want to get out of it.

If I ever start talking to you about my 'craft', my 'instrument', you have permission to shoot me.

Writing a screenplay, I'm like, "All I'm responsible for is that final script, and I take great effort and pride in that." But once I give it to someone to make, I can disassociate with it entirely and not worry that my vision isn't being represented, because I understand fully that that's not how it works.

I spend a lot of time thinking about what I do and how it fits into the scheme of things. I won't do something just because it's funny.

You have to have the essential pleasure of making a movie. It's such a huge factor and adventure for a director because you really are the leader and the captain.

Films have been my only passion in life. I have always been proud of making films and will continue taking pride in all my films. I have never made a movie I have not believed in. However, though I love all my films, one tends to get attached to films that do well. But I do not have any regrets about making films that did not really do well at the box office.

A perfect movie is a different thing, but a funny movie is easy. I was really happy that I got everyone that I got. Everybody got to play to their strengths and was paired up in the right scenarios. It was very fortunate. It was exciting, the whole process. It makes more difficulty in editing 'cause there's more footage, but the guy I had handle it was a documentarian editor for a long time, so it was very useful.

You don't make a photograph just with a camera

I'm often moved by the circumstances around some of my characters, but I don't think I've actually cried watching myself.

[Directing first film:] I was terrified, it was really very scary because there is a lot of responsibility. I think I was terrified because I wanted it to work so much. A lot of actors direct movies but I thought the stakes were kind of higher for me because I really, really cared. [...] I just worked as hard as I possibly could on every single thing, every single day. I said that if this failed it would not be because I didn't work as hard as I possibly could...every day.

I would say the three stages of making a film are the initial 'are we gonna do this,' 'how much will I be paid,' is there a lot of nights, who's it going to be with? The second stage of doing a film is how much fun your going to have doing it. The third stage is was the film a hit?

No one's being precious about their music. They want the film to be great. And that was the huge lesson for me along the way to be a filmmaker. And yes, I'm leading the music department kind of thing and that responsibility with the music is with me, but really that job is one of many.

Both film and fashion are businesses where the audience doesn't feel or see the work that goes on behind the scenes.