Denis Villeneuve Quotes

All the films I do, I write the scripts, I direct.

Writing and directing your own film, for me, has been the best experience of my life.

I think it's always good for the author to stay a good cattle prod's distance from the actual moviemaking.

I know the movies that I've liked, and I know the experience that they've given me, so the goal is always to try to create a movie that I would like myself and that would knock me out, challenge me or intrigue me in some way. That's been my criteria for figuring out what I want to do, or also when I'm writing something or creating a scene.

The only reason you make a movie is not to make or set out to do a good or a bad movie, it's just to see what you learn for the next one.

I try to do as much as I can, every facet of filmmaking.

I honestly never wanted to direct. It was only when I started to work on 'Alexander the Great' that I realized I had to direct. I saw something so specifically in my mind, I could not leave it to someone else.

When you create a movie, you create something in your image.

When I made my first film, I didn't think of it as directing, so it wasn't like I set out to become a director.

There comes a time as you continue to write and work on scripts and screenplays where you realize that you have opinions about the next step of the process, and you kind of want more control over the translation from page to screen.

There is a director for a reason, because a director knows what's best for the movie. You just give your director as much as you can to work with, and hopefully, the decisions they make are going to be great.

I think making a film is as much knowing what you don't like as what you do like, and avoiding the things that you don't like like the plague and making sure that they never appear onscreen in any shape or form.

Eventually, the outcome of a film is not in my hands. What I do while making the film is in my hands, and that is what translates onto the screen.

I love working with actors. I love visual things. I always intended to be a writer who directs and a director who writes.

When I start on a film I always have a number of ideas about my project. Then one of them begins to germinate, to sprout, and it is this, which I take and work with. My films come from my need to say a particular thing at a particular time. The beginning of any film for me is this need to express something. It is to make it nurture and grow that I write my script- it is directing it that makes my tree blossom and bear fruit.

I don't miss scenes at all the way that I used to miss them when I was younger making a film. It's actually quite fun to get rid of them now.

The only way you can learn about making films is by making them, by putting your stamp on the thing.

And I think one way or another it's evident to those who work with me that as a writer, a director, a friend, as somebody's there that's very anxious to get the movie made.

The whole process of making movies and writing screenplays is visceral and intuitive.

All the director wants is their idea of the movie to be believed in.

When you're making a film, there are so many people involved that you get opinions and notes from people and you don't even know who they are. I find that quite difficult and it wears you down.

The director is the only person who knows what the film is about.

It's not just about acting. I love film, I'm a director now, I love writing, I love producing, I love having a company that makes films and to be prolific and have a place to put all the ideas that are constantly bubbling up inside of me and that don't let me sleep at night.

You know as a director what you want, but the film is smarter than you, the film says no, the film says there's something more here.

Well, I think that when you direct a movie or write it. And in the case of the two movies I did, I wrote and directed, they occupy a special place for you.