Lloyd Kaufman Quotes

If I want to, I can sign 20 films for ridiculous amounts of money, but I really want to do different kinds of cinema. I want creative satisfaction.

The only real reason that I'd have for working for Hollywood is the fantastic amounts of money involved, and that isn't enough of an incentive to really give up the degree of control that I have over my work at the moment with comics. I suppose that's probably why I don't have any designs on being a screenwriter.

People ask me about that all the time. They say, "Did you ever think of directing?" And I say, "It's completely out of the question."

I'd like to work more as a director. It's distracting being an actor, because - there's a lot of reasons. You find out you're going to work about six months before you start shooting, and then there's prep and there's post afterward, and there's stuff to do, and then suddenly you've gone a year without directing. There's a part of me that has to not be tempted by that in order to commit more to the directing. Honestly, the big reason for me to act is to observe other directors and learn from them. That seems to be the biggest draw.

I wanted to just be a filmmaker, and I thought I wanted to do all the aspects, and it seemed like as a producer was the best way to do it, because I could have... You never have control on a movie, but you have as much control as you can.

I absolutely love television, and I don't mean to be vulgar, but as I keep having to explain to people from the movie industry, I get more power and more money doing television, so why on earth would I do a film?

Movies, obviously, are a little more lucrative. The initial paycheck is better.

The long and short of it is that I am now in a position in England to green light movies, and that's really excellent - not high-budget movies, but movies none the less.

When 'Tracks' first came out, I was courted by Sydney Pollack. I had lunch with him, and he opened the conversation with, 'Honey, you ain't gonna like what I'm gonna do to your book.' I really liked him, but I turned him down, because - well, I was stupid. I also turned down a great deal of money.

After my film 'The Tale of Two Sisters,' I received a lot of offers from Hollywood to direct, but because 'A Tale of Two Sisters' was a horror film, I received a lot of horror films. But I wasn't interested in working in the same genre, and the scripts I received for films in different genres were for projects that were near completion.

I'm shying away from getting lost in really bad movies for really good money.

I was averaging about one movie a year my whole career, and that was because I'm fussy. I probably could have done more.

I want to act for the rest of my life - and I also want to pursue directing. Watching Bill Condon direct 'Twilight' kind of made me think, 'OK yeah, I really want to do this now.' This idea that you can make an image in your head and be in full control of how it comes out - I thought that was really cool.

People look at stuff like 'Godzilla' and 'Avengers' and think I only do blockbusters, or however you wanna put it, but in reality, I can make double or triple what I got paid for 'Avengers' by doing other stuff - there are other options, but I don't want to work with this person or that person, and so I don't do it.

Everyone wants to do only those films which they find interesting. That is the way the industry works.

Maybe at 55, I would like to direct. I will go the Angelina Jolie way.

I am very choosy about my films. I don't do a film just for the sake of money.

I could have earned lots of crores by doing hundreds of more 'Rangeela' that came my way.

Released in 1967, 'Farz' was the remake of a Telegu film that was turned down by most actors of the time - Manoj Kumar, Shashi Kapoor, Dharmendra... I was the needy and greedy one then and signed the film gladly.

After the success of 'Smokey,' my profit participation only went up on future movies I directed.

If you sell the film rights to your book, it doesn't mean there will be a film. I have sold the rights to five books and had zero films made. Take the money and be thankful.

I always remember my dad saying, "No one makes a remake unless they are trying to make money; there is no reason for it." It was not an honorable thing to do.

You have to do every movie one at a time. Trilogy is contrary to this ideology. My nightmare is to wake up and find myself the host of a TV series.

Directing is monumentally complicated and it's a function of all the time you pay to it. I think it would be great to do a movie I'm not in, I could just eat Fritos and just say, 'yeah, it's good!' Some day.

I make independent movies. I don't know how to do anything else. I don't know any other job that I could really get.