Clint Eastwood Quotes

I usually try not to think about actors while writing, because the odds of those stars aligning and you getting those specific people are so rare.

You read a script, you try and think through what is the best, most wide-ranging way of telling the story: who stylistically, character-logically, psychologically fits inside the world of what you're trying to do. A lot of it, when you're casting, is trying to get yourself in the head of a director.

Sometimes casting falls in place easily and sometimes it takes a while. Fifty per cent of my job is done when I get the right actors.

If you cast a film incorrectly, then you're going to be fighting an uphill battle.

You set up the look, the visual effects and the sets, and that's awesome, but I enjoy the casting most of all. That's where you really get to define the show.

I pride myself on doing character-driven movies and, when my movies have worked, it's been because of the right casting and the right character, and it just clicks.

I had great luck with Tim McGraw twice in 'Friday Night Lights' and 'The Kingdom.' I love finding off-beat casting and finding someone you know in one way and you reinvent them in another way. I like doing that as a director.

I always used to say, as a director, that I could make anybody good in a movie if you found the right part. It all comes down to casting.

If you cast the picture correctly, you have a whole lot of leeway. You can make mistakes in other aspects but pull it off with the right actors.

There are many aspects to directing that have a romantic place in people's minds.

Casting is everything. If you get the right people they make you look good.

But a writer's contribution is literary and a film is not literary. When you take that stuff off the page, and cast the people who are going to fit into those roles, that's what being a director is.

I always think that a director who knows about the technical side, but cares about the acting performances and casting as well, is ahead of the game.

As a director, it became important to hear that specific role read by that specific actor, and you hear the chemistry, or you don't hear the chemistry. So I'm not so bothered by the audition process anymore; in fact, I use it. It's a time for the actor to actually get to the know the director and the producers a little bit, too.

Because actors don't get to pick movies; movies pick the actors.

Producing small films, you usually have four or five people you want, and you hope one of them will say they'll do it.

If a film is being made by an intelligent director, they're going to cast the right guy.

I've always believed that it's the film that chooses the actor and not the other way round.

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

I worked in casting for about five years before I became a director, and that taught me a huge amount because you never actually will see the character walk through the door - and if you do, then you have to be slightly suspicious of that.

As a director, you see something in someone; you know it's there, you just got to go get it. You do that with any actor. That's your job.

I think one of the biggest jobs of being a director is getting the casting right.

I love to choose the right actors. It's kind of a pleasure to work with them and watch them imbue your concepts that you write.

I don't really write with actors in mind; I write with characters and then hope desperately that we can get good actors to play those parts.

I cast very much from the gut, and I think I was very lucky to be able to get... many amazing international... people that I had always really wanted to work with.