Peter Jackson Quotes

It's true that I don't think I'd be a good director. If I were a director, I'd try to hire the best people I could and then leave them alone. I don't know much about cameras or lighting, so I'd make sure that I had a really good cameraman who understood lenses and lighting, and I say to him, "This is the scene we have to shoot and this is what I think it should be, you go do it." Same with actors. But really, very good directors who know everything do basically the same thing. They hire you and then they leave you alone.

Directors are the fulcrum of the movie. They guide us well, not merely rein actors in. Whenever we stray, they bring us back on track.

When you do a movie, it's like going on a journey. It's really like the director is the captain of the ship, and that energy, everybody feels.

I wrote a script and I've been whispering in director's ears for a really long time and I'd love to direct.

Film work can be very interesting, but it also can be awfully boring because who creates the film? The actors? No. It is the director. It's his piece of work.

Producing is easier, I can just be at the set overseeing the story.

I think there is more cohesion when you have one director on set.

What I really plan to do is take the best scripts I get and consider them seriously. I can actually work as an actor and prepare a film as a director.

I would say that the energy on set is always the energy of the director because he's the boss.

I do a film only when I feel I will be comfortable with the set-up and other members of the team.

Sometimes the best set experiences make for the worst films. So, you don't want it to be too good an experience! But the bulk of your life is working with people and collaborating so you don't want anyone to be miserable on your film either. You want it to be something that people walk away from saying that it was a good experience for them and hopefully a good film. As a director, you are sort of leader of that troupe for that period of time, so you're aware of morale and your effect - how you are as a person and how that sort of trickles down to everyone else.

I don't know necessarily that I would produce under my own company right now. Producing is not something that I'm thinking about. Directing is something that I will be doing very shortly, trying to figure out what to get my hands on. And I can't imagine writing a script and wanting to direct it and not having a producing credit, because I would want to have a big chunk of power on that end, if I wrote something.

The timing for directing is usually because it takes that long to develop a piece and then do pre-production and then post-production. It takes at least a couple of years. I prefer directing to doing other things. Directing and writing seem to be infinitely more creative

If I'm intimidated, I shouldn't be directing a movie. I gotta treat 'em as characters, not as stars. It's hard to not treat Marlon Brando as a legend, a star, it's difficult not to treat Robert De Niro as a star, but that had to go away very fast after I knew them, because I had to work with them. I'm the director, I'm the boss. They're looking to me for guidance.

A director is what a director wants to be. If you want to force something, you can fight to the death and maybe get fired, but it's your job to help push things along.

As a director myself, you want to have colleagues and collaborators that respect your authority as the director. I'm very comfortable with that, and I've done a lot of work in second unit.

I would love to be able to get behind the camera and direct actors. I think that would be a lot of fun.

The work of a director can be summed up in two very simple words. Why and How.

The secret of directing is working with really good people.

Directing a movie precludes me from being involved in any greater way. But, the job was never to do more, it was always to enable. Sometimes as a producer, you're creating and writing it, or sometimes you're writing and directing it, or other times you're there from the very beginning.

You can only have one voice on set, and that has to be the director.

(When asked what a director does) I help.

Film is a collaborative process, absolutely, but I am a control freak.

I had a philosophy, which may have been proven right, that directing isn't as hard as everyone says it is.

We're producing a movie now, 'The Onion' Movie, and it's very difficult for me to be on the set. If I'm not right in the trenches, it's very difficult for me to watch another director, because I'm not involved and it's not exciting.