John Cameron Mitchell Quotes

Some day I'll make a film that critics will like. When I have money to waste.

Making a movie is difficult enough to sort of have a premeditated length that you're going for. I don't know a single filmmaker on the planet who does that.

You make a movie that is about what you want it to be about and let people have their reaction to it.

A lot of producers cookie cut movies one after another, but I'll be a little more careful, and have the opportunity to be, because I have the acting career to subsidize the producing.

I'm not gonna ever announce that I'm going to do an album again. Waking up with that on your head almost doesn't allow you to make the best album you can.

I think it's possible to be free in a big production. It's the eye of the director and the actor and the story.

I'm an actor first and foremost. My producing credentials are just to say, 'Yeah, I love this story and now let's bring the people, the ensemble together,' and I get out of the way. I have no desire to check on schedules and shooting schedules and money and stuff like that.

If a film is very clever and well-written, that's what gives you freedom as a director.

I think television keeps on being a place where writers can go, and if they're successful, they can have their way, and they can have creative freedom.

It all felt like a terribly long time. It would have meant that I had to make five movies in five years and if you don't like the movies, too bad. I guess I just wanted my freedom, and I think my life has been incredibly enhanced as a result.

Don't give me any money, don't give me any people, but give freedom, and I'll give you a movie that looks gigantic.

Success is freedom - scripts coming your way and getting to choose the stories you want to tell.

Directing is really exciting. In the end, it's more fun to be the painter than the paint.

I want to write and direct and kind of do my own thing.

We've been remarkably lucky in that we've been free to make the movies we've wanted to make the way we've wanted to make them. They've all been made for a price.

When censorship is intelligent, it will stop a film before it is made. If not, it is too late.

Directors tend to kind of let me do what I want to do.

What happened on 'Mr. & Mrs. Smith,' I was given a big budget and given too many choices, and I made a lot of mistakes and missteps early on until I squandered all that extra money. But then, once my back was up against the wall, I made what I consider a really good movie.

There's something about Jason Katims' writing that just feels like home to me. He gives you so much liberty to play, which you don't find on most TV shows. You just don't.

I've learned that you never have to think about how to make money. You need only to focus on what you think is going to be a good movie or what's a movie I'd like to watch as the audience.

For me, directing a film is like confining myself. I want to do something beyond direction. I can conceive stories, write screenplays, etc. That's better for me.

When I'm in the studio, I'm very cautious about it because if there's one thing that can destroy music being made, it's any sort of agenda, expectation and/or schedule, or any of that.

Guillermo del Toro is able to invent his worlds. I would find the pressure of having to invent crippling.

I like to control my films from beginning to end, to write them the way I want.

I'm really not opposed to playing anything as long as it's a story that I want to tell.