William H. Macy Quotes

Persistence is half the battle. That's what I love about independent movies. They don't have to be made. There's no studio with an agenda to set up a franchise like 'Batman' or to make a vehicle for a celebrity actor. My films are made because I love the process.

The things that I've done that have totally been remembered, they've always started with the same kind of engine, they've always started with someone saying 'I have to make this film - I'm going to make this film whatever the odds'.

If you love your film, you have to fight for it.

We have to make some movies we have passion for, respect for.

The Hollywood model is to develop scripts for 10 years, sell them, transfer them, attach this actor, then attach a director. This isn't what I'm about. I'm much more of a creator and a doer.

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.

You know I'm proud that I was able to develop and produce movies that I wanted to make.

I've always been in the middle of making my own movies, so taking acting jobs that take me away from that has been impossible.

I always fight hard to push a movie to the point where it pulls me.

I don't make movies because I think audiences will want to go see them.

When I got into art school, I thought it was paradise. I wanted to be an artist so much that I was really driven and nothing could stop me.

I directed some movies in the past, and I'd still love to do that. You know, the whole thing is a labor of love, I think.

I'm always looking for a reason to say no when I'm approached about a big studio tentpole because your fear is will you be consumed into the anonymous machine, and it will suck out any specificity and point of view that you might hope to express.

I want to make my own films from my own scripts based on stories I want to tell, but they take time to put together.

I just wanted to do this all Australian film and we didn't want to give creative control to overseas 'cause whoever comes on my sets, whether you're sweeping the floor or an actor, it doesn't matter who comes up with the ideas, it's a collaboration.

I don't think Hollywood makes many good films anymore. How many directors can you really trust to have an artistic vision, not a corporate vision or a watered-down communal one?

If you want to make movies you need to think on a micro-micro level and figure out how to make them for nothing with people who really care about your movie and really want to make it.

If I read the right script, if that script needs $5 million, if that script needs $50 million, I don't care. If I read a project that's beautiful, that I really want to make, whatever it needs, it needs.

I have sworn to die painting.

Working with David Cronenberg or Darren Aronofsky or even Steven Soderbergh isn't really like a typical Hollywood movie. These are true artists, and have a certain amount of freedom when they work, and they're more like independent filmmakers making their way through big studios.

Since childhood, I'd dreamed of making a film, but producers in France and Germany wanted to make commercial films with chinoiserie. I refused.

I really love independent films. There's something so determined about the people who work on them.

Indie movies got co-opted by the studio system. The studios insisted that only stars could make movies successful.

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.