Tommy Bond Quotes

You have to get it in your brain that you don't belong to yourself as an actor, but that you belong to the director who creates the character.

There are directors, and I think this is true of all directors, it would be true if I was a director - If the actor didn't want to do what I was suggesting, I would let him do it his way, and then I would say to him, "Just give me one where you do what the director wants", and that, of course, is the take that's used.

I love to direct! I get really jazzed by directing, but directing is not the same kind of personal expression, the same kind of personal intimate expression that writing is. Because when you're directing, you're basically managing, basically getting out of people doing their job, except when you see them going astray.

If a thing is going to represent you, your vision, you should be involved in every aspect of that thing. I like my role as executive producer on anything probably as much as performer.

The best times I had on film sets were the times the director let me express myself, but those were rare.

As an actor, you're never really in control of the product. I think the goal is to create what you want. And if you can get as close as you can get to the creation of something, it starts with development.

I think there's a tendency with actor/directors to imagine themselves playing every part and trying to get people to follow their rhythm, their tempo, their pace. I've learned now to just love being at the center of this creative swirl.

I see my actors as my collaborators.

After making 'Secretary,' it was a real shock to me to learn that some directors just aren't interested in what actors have to say. They just don't want to collaborate.

I'd like to be a director who gives my actors complete freedom while collaborating with them to find performances.

You - as a director, you have to do your job, you have to show things, and you don't have to ask the actors to do it, or the dialogue.

I think - in general, I don't think I've been involved in a single movie that turned out the way I anticipated it to turn out. Just because, as an actor, there's only so much that I can bring to a project.

'Hanna' was nice. It was Saoirse Ronan's idea. Usually, the director casts the actor, but in this case, the actor cast the director.

Some of our favorite films are obviously not written by the person who directed it. And yet a 'Taxi Driver,' or some Nicholas Ray movie, like 'In a Lonely Place,' seems so personal or obsessive or whatever.

I can't imagine bringing in somebody else to direct my show. Wouldn't that be funny, if next season I had, like, Michael Bay come in and direct 'Better Things'? I wonder what that would be like?

Success stems from the producer creating the optimal conditions for the filmmaker's own creative process. Not from steering the filmmaker through a one-size-fits-all approach.

There's some freedom that you get with indie films that you don't get with the big-budget ones. There's just a different style. I hope I can switch back and forth for the rest of my career, but I've kind of grown up on indies, and there's nothing better than working with these directors so closely and and being such a huge part of the process.

I'll put it this way: with the kind of films that I do - creatively driven, with interesting directors and writers - I don't feel the need to work with the super established, top-tier directors that are out there.

My father always watches my films and gives his opinion. I am even ready to reshoot at times if he asks me to.

I know a lot of editors who are very bitter about the directors they work with. They feel they could have done a better job, and I say to them, 'Oh really? Why don't you go try - it's not easy.'

When you're writing, in theory, everybody is serving you. When you're directing, you're serving everybody - in the guise of acting like everybody's serving you. But you're really serving the materials. You're serving the actors. You're in charge, but it's not free.

When it comes to music, I am a dictator. Making a Dirty Projectors record come to life is like making a movie; I'm the one that makes the picture, and then we all figure out how to realise it.

I tend to get hired because the filmmakers like what I do, so there's usually not that much conflict about the direction.

Earlier, actors had a lot of power in their hands. And now, it has gone in the hands of the directors and writers, and that is how it should be. They are the visionaries, and we are the doers.

I am extremely malleable as an actor, but I also know how to get away with doing things the way I want, even if the director disagrees.