John Wells Quotes

Movies are very hard to make, to get it all to come together. So many people have their say in what the end product of films are.

The film, even when we were making it in that budget range, which was really a coup - we got it made because we pitched it to the studio head, Joe Roth.

I really wanted 'NH10' to be made, and being associated with it eased the entire process.

In the film industry you never really know if all the various ingredients will come together - sometimes they do, and sometimes they don't. As an actor, you don't have much control over those things. It's a director's medium in that sense. All you can really do is minimise the risks of being involved in something that might not work and look for something that also suits you.

I want to have a great director, and also a great producer and co-stars. And there should be a tight script. After all, regardless of how the film turns out, I must have fun doing the film!

What you do is get the right director and the right screenwriter and the right cast. It's a fantastic job.

If a script comes together, and you end up liking the people who are part of it, that's when you can make magic happen. It's a huge combination of trying to find something you think you can deliver on and a director you think you can collaborate with to make a good picture.

My mother gave me this book called Feature Films at Used Car Prices by a guy named Rick Schmidt. I gotta credit the guy, cuz he gave me the most practical advice. It empowers you.

What you learn when you direct a film, even more so than as a producer, it's a marriage. It's like a relationship with that film so you've got to make sure that it's really something that you want to live with for three years or however long it is. So I haven't found the right thing to marry yet.

The type of producing that I did for many years involved working very closely with directors.

I've been in the game long enough to know what elements you have to package together to get a movie into production.

Finding original source material is not easy, but when something special like 'Edge of Tomorrow' comes along, everybody recognized it. I wasn't swimming against the stream. Warner Brothers immediately supported it, Tom Cruise signed on instantly; Emily Blunt, who was our first choice, signed on immediately.

We were doing press for this movie that my friends and I made for $5,000 called 'Brothers Justice,' that I also wrote and directed. And during the press of that, people kept saying, 'What's next, what's next?' And my best friend Nate and I - Nate produced it - we kept saying, 'Oh, we're gonna do a car-chase movie next.'

I enjoy co-directing or even being there just for support because you get to see your script come to aural life in front of you.

Three years after starting, by physically doing everything from raising the finance to special effects, we'd finally cobbled together our low budget film.

Every film I do, I'm involved with from the very conception of the project.

As I've always said, preproduction is so important. When you cast the actors, you've done much of the work. Now, you may need to guide them a little, take it up or down, have them go faster or slower, but the casting process is crucial.

I don't see a big difference between the job of directing a low-budget movie and the job of directing a big-budget movie.

Directors are our teachers, and I'm always craving to work with a great director. They're pretty much the first thing that interests me about a project. Let's put it this way: It'll take me a lot longer to read a script if there's no director attached.

Sometimes it's the script or an opportunity to work with an incredible director.

I want to make a movie with Al Pacino someday.

There is a variety of different kind of producers. I'm a very hands-on, creative producer. I find material that I think would make a good movie or TV show, find the right financier/studio/network, hire a writer, get a good script, find a director, and collaborate with him/her to cast the movie and hire department heads.

Usually when I write a movie, I'm lucky if I get one good actress.

It's good to work with a writer-director.

If I work with Shah Rukh, it will be as an actor, not a star. Whenever I have thought of making a film with some star in mind, I've abandoned the film in a few weeks.