Aaron Johnson Quotes

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

I don't want to do every independent film offered to me.

I would never refuse a film or do a film for a certain amount of money.

If I wanted to work financially, I would have made a series of different choices. I do get offered lots of movies which you could make a lot of money out of. And I always say, 'Why would I do that, when someone else could do it much better than me? Why would I want to do an action picture? Why?'

I would have happily done 'Bourne Legacy,' but a lot of decisions are made for you.

I understand it all. I can write my own ticket for one or two movies. But if they're not the right ones, my ticket gets yanked. I understand that's how it works, and I'm okay with it.

There's a few movies I wanted to do, and I didn't get to do them partly because they wanted me to be part of the horse and pony show, getting the money, and I'm just not doing that. There's a few movies that people wanted me to do, but they were too safe.

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?

In fact, I had a series of offers which would have brought me a lot of money to make films and package TV programs. There were people who said to me, we'll put a million dollars in your bank account tomorrow, which is a hard thing to turn down.

I've been offered lots of movies. There's always some actor who's doing a project and would like to have me do it. But you look at the project and think, 'Gee, there are a lot of good directors who could do that.' I'd like to do something only I can do.

I'm lucky enough that financially I don't have to feel obliged to go for the bigger stuff. I like the stories and scripts to dictate if I want to do them.

Luckily, I haven't been offered any $300 million movies that I hate. So I'm not in that predicament just yet.

There's no one actor in particular that I want to model my career after, except for the people who have been able to keep their career varied and who choose things that interest them. That opportunity is all I really want.

There are really only a handful of directors who have a final cut clause in Hollywood. You only get that power if you've made a couple of hundred-million-dollar successes.

I could be making a lot more money now if I had chosen a different kind of movie, but none of that matters to me... I've done the parts I wanted to do.

I've turned down shows offering large amounts of money.

I did get offers from Hollywood, but they were all scripts with monsters in them. If I had done them, I would have disappeared. I would have come back to France anyway, and I would have had to start all over again and lost a lot of time.

People send me records, and if don't like them, I won't do them; I don't care how much money you offer.

I am completely open to doing a romantic comedy, but I will never do something just for the sake of doing a specific genre or because it's the time or place to do a different type of movie. I think that would be a huge mistake.

I still refuse films offered to me at phenomenal prices and am doing some for peanuts.

I want everything that I've worked for to go into my pocket. I want all my money to come to me. I'm very much hands-on with my career, and I like to do what I want in the studio - I don't like being told, 'do it this way' or 'do it that way.'

When you ask me why I do one film a year, it is not my fault. I've chosen what I liked from whatever work came my way.

The wonderful situation that I find myself in now, is that choosing the roles I want is more of a reality for me. As a result, I take it very seriously, because I find this opportunity in film to be a very powerful and influential medium.

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.

I never think of myself as a big star. Getting good scripts is all I think about. I don't have a godfather or anyone to take care of me. To move forward, I have to be very careful in choosing the right scripts, the right director, and the right technicians.