Ted Demme Quotes

No matter where I am working, I cannot make a film without 100% creative control and final cut. If there is such a guarantee, I can work anywhere.

I'm so not interested in producing, other than doing my own work, producing my own films. I only do it as favors, for other people to get their films made.

I always say that AMC hires filmmakers, and they let them be filmmakers.

Studios never put pressure. They know the kind of films I want to make.

'Easy Rider' and 'The Last Movie' were the only films that I made totally on my own.

I still want to do features, but on my own terms.

When I get to make a movie, I really try to make it on my own terms.

It's just hard to get an independent film made.

The quality of mainstream cinema has changed. A lot of independent voices feel they can leave everything behind and make independent films.

Sometimes being an actor is being a song in someone else's mixtape, so I really understand why more and more actors are making films of their own.

You don't always just have to do an indie movie to feel like you're controlling it with a few people that you really have connected with, creatively. You can do it on a bigger scale.

I think this last film I finished, 'The Butler,' is the closest I will come to as a work-for-hire.

I've produced my own films for twenty years now - it means I have to talk to less people.

I have as much artistic freedom in my television work as I have in my films.

I don't like to deal with studios.

I just want to make good films on my own wherever I can.

I'm a filmmaker; I want to make films. I don't want to sit in a hotel room waiting to make films, and I can control my thing in Denmark; I can make the film I want to make... of course, I have to write a good script, all that, but if I do my job, it will happen.

It's hard to get personal films off the ground, and it's hard developing them.

I had a certain career as an actor that I think was quite personal as well, and had a lot of integrity, but I wasn't writing my own things or directing my own movies.

In film, you have to let go sometimes.

I started to make my own films, however small and however independent they were, from the beginning. And so, even though I was nobody, I was always the master of my own work.

Other people have worked with big studios and maintained control over their movies. I see no reason why it wouldn't work for me.

Independent film is not only an oxymoron; it doesn't exist anymore.

One thing I know is that I don't want to be a director for hire, making genre films.

It was important that I got my own voice out there in the world. I'd used it on other people's films, collaborated, and I thought, 'You know, I can do this myself.' That was more important than anything else.