James Gray Quotes

Anytime I make a movie, I really have absolutely no idea how it's going to go over. I've had the whole range of different kinds of reactions.

There is no guaranteed formula. And that's one of the interesting things about filmmaking. You could put $115 million in, and it doesn't guarantee success.

There are movies that I've made where I thought I was going to be good, but when it was cut it together it wasn't. And there are a lot of movies that, for one reason or another, just don't become popular. So to me it's always been a little bit of a roll of the dice. That's the way it goes.

To make great movies, there is an element of risk. You have to say, 'Well, I am going to make this film, and it is not really a sure thing.'

The many many imponderables come together when a film opens and for all sorts of reasons it may or may not succeed.

I know the nature of comedy, and you never know what will happen with the next movie or whether people will find it funny.

You make something, and you really have fun with it, and you try to put emotion in it, and at the end of the day, you have no idea how the tide is going to fall. You don't know if everyone's going to like it, if everyone's going to hate it, if it's going to be like you're a media darling, or all of a sudden you're a sellout. You have no idea.

As an actor, I've always said, half the audience is going to love you, half is going to hate you so just live with it. It's easier that way.

You can't predict a show, that is the damndest thing, you can't predict if a show is going to work or not until it's on the air.

I've never had a movie that got great reviews. I've had movies that got different levels of good and bad reviews, but you can more or less count on plenty of bad reviews.

A film will be a hit or a flop in spite of my worrying about it.

Filmmaking, I often like to say, is like Russian roulette. You never know what you'll get. The only thing you can do is find solace in the fact that, irrespective of the film's response, you work hard to make the money you do.

Critics can get you critical acclaim - nothing more than that. Success or failure depends on the public.

I do not keep a track of numbers as such, but I am definitely aware of how a film of mine is doing when it is playing in theatres. More than the numbers, it is important to know how the audience is reacting to the film.

I've done a lot of movies, and you really never know. You do a movie and you think that it's great, and then you see it and it doesn't work.

I never expect anything. I am always amazed at why anybody goes to any movie or why anybody doesn't go to any movie. Any movie you make, you make it because you're hoping somebody wants to see it, but you never know.

You can have a good vibe and a good feeling about something, but you never really know how it's going to be received and how an audience is going to react to it.

Sometimes a great director will do a bad job and an okay director will do a great job. You never know.

I'm more surprised than anyone that 'Spamalot's done so well. You can never predict what's going to be a hit.

I've made movies that I thought were okay, but then I was very good. And sometimes you're in a movie and you think, 'I wish more people saw that' - because you're good. And it just works out that the movie gets lost. But that's show business.

A lot of people loved to hate my character on 24. I want to be the character people love to love.

I feel like I've finally made it as an actor. I've been doing this for years and you don't always make a movie that everybody likes.

You never know what the public is going to respond to or relate to.

This life of ours, this is a wonderful life. If you can get through life like this and get away with it, hey that's great. But it's very predictable. There's so many ways you can screw it up.

I became a film director, but I wasn't successful with my first couple of films, so I had to turn to becoming a film critic to make a living.