Riz Ahmed Quotes

When you make a movie, you do it so piecemeal. You're doing it, not only scene by scene, out of order, but shot by shot, line by line. And there's this idea that the director has the whole thing in his or her head and they're going to somehow weave it all together in the end.

When you make a movie, you can only make the movie that you would want to see.

Whenever I'm doing any film, there's always three different things. There's the script, which is really just a blueprint. And then, you shoot the movie and it's an entirely different experience than you would expect from reading the script. And then, there's the whole post process and the editing, and it becomes something else entirely.

I wrote 'All is Lost' while editing 'Margin Call'. I did that long before I knew if I was ever going to get to make another movie.

I understand, certain scenes have to have a lot of takes. As an actor, I think it's quite nice to have a handful of takes, because you don't want to do it once or twice; I think once or twice sometimes is quite terrifying because you don't really feel like you've given them what you want.

Same thing with film, by the time you've finished shooting and you've really been into everything, you've touched up everything in the editing room. You've gone in there and taken little bits from everything.

I grew up on film sets but more around the process of making films. I saw a lot of the editing process and the writing process, which takes years. That really affected me growing up, that side of it.

Fundamentally, I always find that most of the films that I've put out are essentially the director's cut. Part of the process with a director's cut is the leaving behind of certain aspects of the movie that we don't feel necessary because they aren't part of the dynamic of the story.

It's very rare to watch a movie and think, 'That's the movie we shot!' So many things happen, with edits and things getting cut out.

I'm well aware that I have put my actors in difficult positions because of my vision, but when they see I work for the betterment of the product, they understand the pain I put them through.

You have more time to work in movies. My experience with movies is that you have more time to experiment with the character and camera angles and things like that.

The moment that you start to read a script, you're watching the movie in your mind, and that's the one moment that you have. Then, you go off to make the movie and you become so lost in it.

There's a lot of time sitting in movies, so you can put alligators in people's trailers in your spare time. So it [making a film] moves slower, which in some ways is great, because you can live with a scene and invest in it a lot. And in some ways it's hard, because sometimes you can start to lose your energy a little bit, but both are fun.

Every movie I've ever made has just kind of come together.

It's always a problem with television and with films, you always shoot things out of sequence, so you just take your best stab at every moment. You can't really - you'll drive yourself crazy if you dwell on the negative aspects of it or your shortcomings.

It's rare that I'm working on a movie and that's the case. My goal is the same, ultimately at a certain point you give it to the director and their vision. You're there to support that vision.

My dad told me, 'Your movie's never as good as the dailies and never as bad as the rough cut.

If you're producing a movie you're involved in every aspect of the movie and that can be daunting and then going and doing a movie where you're just an actor for hire, and you can kind of sit back and giggle where you can see somebody sitting over there wasting time and wasting money.

In fact, the difference between creative and interpretive, it all starts with the writing. Then if you can get the money together to make the film, then you're in touch with the visuals and the actual creation, and the sound of what you want to mean. Of course, some directors get inspired by what people do anyway. Don't feel the need [to stick to the script]. In fact, they sometimes go "That's not what I had in mind, but that suits the purpose well.".

If the director wishes to print it, then you have a series of choices, maybe millions of choices within that minute-and-a-half, or 80 seconds, or 2 minutes or however long or short the take is, you have all those choices committed to celluloid. I find that absolutely thrilling.

I would say my favorite was just the beginning of the movie like doing all the rehearsal stuff. It's been amazing to see the rest of it happen but it happens so piecemeal. And Edgar sort of has the whole movie edited in his head already, so we're just sort of matching to what he has.

As an actor, you're just brought on to fill one role, so it's nice to see what the entire journey is like. As much as I'd be allowed to do it, I would do it. I love it.

Actors can be very precious about their work and their scenes, but I think good actors have a strong understanding of narrative and are very often not as precious about that stuff. They just can't be because they understand what makes for a better film, and that it's the job of the actor to work toward that, and then if you want you can go to acting class or workshops. But making movies is not workshops.

You usually never know what you're going to do when you're making a movie.

If a director can find the exact combination between the written word as a guideline and improvisational input from his actors, I think that's where you'll find the most successful work being done.