Christian Cooke Quotes

I didn't train in directing; I talk to actors the way I talk to anybody.

Some directors are very free and some directors are very specific. It seemed like doing a play.

I learned that the best way to work is to allow the scene to live on its own before making major adjustments, whether in rehearsal or on film.

I do think that's so much a part of what being a director is - in working with actors - to really try and be sensitive to what each actor needs to get to where he wants to be.

The problem with being a writer/director: unless you're really disciplined, you start adding projects, and you have to make time to make them. Because you have to write them... no one else is writing them for me.

If you have the right actors and you can give them the freedom to explore, you've done a lot of your work as a director.

I don't like shows, I don't like to put on a show, I just really want to work intimately with my actors.

With both acting and ballet, often you can't just choose when you do it, whereas a painter can go at his own pace.

Scorsese is a fan of improv and is always pushing actors to think up something that would make the scene more fun. He loves any idea that helps the scene be alive.

When it comes to writing musicals, you write the best piece you can. Then, its destiny is in the hands of the actors and the director.

Directors don't always create, they can also destroy with too many demands.

I've worked with Woody Allen twice and he was like, "Whatever you want to change, it's up to you. If you want to change the words, make them your own."

The worst thing you can do to anybody trying to be creative is to demand participation in their vision.

Acting to me is a very organic art form and you just go and do it. And I like to direct the same way that I like to be directed. Let me bring in what I want to bring in, and if something's wrong, just tell me about it and I'll make some corrections or adjustments. And that's what I do.

I personally think if you're given four months instead of four weeks on a play, with the people who want to work that way, the play will invariably be different and stronger, and much more fulfilling and richer on all counts. There's no doubt in my mind about it.

About 70 percent of everything is really sketched out on my keyboard beforehand, because I do want accidents to happen in the studio.

One of the advantages of series TV is that you can change your mind and plan things as you go.

As soon as your mind knows that it's on and it's supposed to produce some lines, either it doesn't or it produces things that are very predictable. And that's why I say I'm not interested in writing something that I thought about. I'm interested in discovering where my mind wants to go, or what object it wants to pick up.

We didn’t want to disrupt the creative process. We have the chance to make the films we want because the films are not expensive. It’s very rare to be able to do that. It’s completely pure.

The working process is ideally freeing my mind.

It's funny, I don't even consider myself a rapper, I don't consider myself a designer, or even an actor. I just like creating stuff and trying to make good work, whatever it is. I don't care if it's designing toothbrushes. It's just making cool stuff to leave behind, that's all it is, it's nothing more.

That's kind of the weird thing about Salad Days. I had to block time off from touring and tell my management and label like no press, no nothing. Let me make an album. You guys are running me dead.

When I am painting I have a general notion as to what I am about. I can control the flow of paint: there is no accident.

The freedom to create is somehow linked with facility of access to those obscure regions below the conscious mind.

You know, I like to release music the way I feel it, as opposed to having a date.