William Friedkin Quotes

When you work with an actor and then you discover new things that are better, I think you gotta be free to be able to go with the new things that you're finding. I think that's very important. I have a strong idea when I go to shoot a movie but I also love to discover things when I'm on set as well.

I would never say I will stay in electronic music for the rest of my life. I will always do whatever I feel like at that moment.

The fact is I'm an opportunist. I'll take materials around me, materials on my table, and work with them as I'm searching for an idea that works.

I never make films thinking 'This is my film. This right here is undoubtedly Kim Jee-Woon style.' I am not even sure what 'Kim Jee-Woon style' is. When I make films, I never allow myself to make hard-set decisions ahead of time.

Never in my life have I thought, 'What's next?' It's just like 'Finding Dory.' Things just happen.

When I start a picture, I always have a script, but I change it every day. I put in what occurs to me that day out of my imagination. You start on a voyage; you know where you will end up but not what will occur along the way. You want to be surprised.

It's always more fun when something happens outside of a script.

'Enlightened Rogues' we made like the earlier ones: whatever tune came up, whatever direction it went in, that's the way it went. That's what we'll always do. I think if we ever stop doin' that, we ought to quit.

I like to leave a little room to innovate and change things around while I'm working.

You see something happening and you bang away at it. Either you get what you saw or you get something else--and whichever is better you print.

There ain't no rules here, we're trying to accomplish something...All this talk about rules...When the deal goes down...we make 'em up as we go along.

We are comfortable with formulas, but the best happens when the formula doesn't work.

Follow the accident, fear the fixed plan--that is the rule.

Every now and then I'll think of something to put back in the show. I just kind of play it off the top of my head. If I do it that way it keeps it kinda fresh.

I think I'm open to adventures and surprises. As a performer, I'm really just naturally talented. And those roles may not look as good on paper, but I know how to create them on screen. I like to have fun and interpret my roles in my own way.

If you don't have a plan, you can end up doing some interesting things.

I think if you're doing a play, you're rehearsing enough that you get to a point where it's freeing again. But in a movie, if you rehearse too much, now you've just shown everybody what you're going to do. And any element of surprise or impulsiveness is taken away.

I like to use a bit of chaos when I shoot. I think it may be something from the way I shot my first film - I was very scared, of course, and I prepared everything, I wanted to make sure that the characters did the right thing at the right time on the storyboard. But then I realised that in life, there is so much more than what you can predict or write in advance, that when you shoot the story, it's good to leave some gaps where you lose control. I think this combination of chaos and organisation gives a kind of quality.

A lot of improvisation ends up being about just thinking outside of the box in the scene. It's not improvisation as much as it is quickness or making it real.

I'm not old school, like, "Aw, man, I gotta do my music like I did in '98." I just go with the flow. I don't try to change anything.

What makes people and companies and artistic directors and choreographers interested in working with dancers is the ability to kind of let go of everything you think you know and be a blank canvas.

It's impossible for me to feel like there's only one way to do a thing. There's nothing wrong with having one way of doing it, but I think it's a bad habit. I believe in range. Like, there's a lot of tunes that I play all the time-sometimes I hear 'em in a different register. And if you don't have complete freedom, or you won't let yourself get away from that one straight line, oh, my goodness, that's too horrible to even think about.

The directors I consider really great have the ability to recognize when something's going in an unexpected direction and see it as a bonus and be able to go with it, as opposed to locking down what they thought was going to happen.

I don't like to plan anything ever because it never seems to work. I'm just really...let's just get this film out and see how this one does.

I don't think about music as being new or modern. I just play.