Scott Derrickson Quotes

I've constantly done my best to get the best material I can get with the best directors I can get to direct me.

I knew I had to write a good screenplay to be taken seriously, and I knew I needed to present Mississippi on visuals instead of just saying, 'Hey I wanted to film it in Mississippi.' It would seem like it was a hometown boy just wanting to be home.

A writer uses a pen instead of a scalpel or blow torch.

No one ever sets out to make a bad movie. There's almost always incredible amount of passion and work put behind any given project. You just have to give it everything you got, and sometimes it works out, and a lot of the times it doesn't.

I would like to believe that I am a collaborative actor. That's why I love all the directors I have worked with in recent times, as they are all collaborative directors. I think my constant desire is to keep bettering my own work. I don't get easily satisfied with my work; I am very critical of it. I learn from my mistakes.

I consider myself a good screenwriter.

Actors betray. Technicians don't. Movies are made by technicians.

You can sit around and complain that Hollywood doesn't make any good movies. But you can generate your own material. So I read books. I come up with ideas. I was the producer on 'The Woodsman' to help get that off the ground. Sometimes that extends itself to directing.

Making movies is all about compromise, negotiation, and sacrifice, but the process helps you distill what's really important to you, and once you have identified what those these things are for any particular sequence, you hold onto them and don't let them go.

A producer friend of mine from film school had read some of my early screenplays - some experiments I had done to see how fast I could write something.

To be very honest, I worked harder on 'Humpty...' I did many workshops. I never did workshops in 'Main Tera Hero.'

A filmmaker has to have faith in talent.

Working with directors like Gurinder Chadha was a learning experience for me.

There was a day when I woke up and realised that I had to pinch myself, since I was going to work with Majid Majidi.

I tell stories, and I do it through writing, through acting, through my stand-up, and through directing. All the hats I wear - producing as well - ultimately, I am a storyteller.

I think there's an aspect of my soul, of my personality, that's very suited to directing. I like being in the room with actors; I love creating a safe space and a chaotic space for the discovery to take place. I love creating a sense of community.

Success and failure are a part of filmmaking.

People sometimes think that a video pops out of my head with no more work than extracting a booger. Every video is a challenge (an exciting one, sure, but a challenge.) Every collaboration is complicated.

Being a part of the Bollywood industry gives you to the kind of exposure that's unimaginable. You also tap into this experience of technical expertise that this industry has been carrying along for several years. I didn't take part in the industry with an agenda in mind. If it happens, great.

In a weird way, I never wanted - I don't consider myself a very good writer. I consider myself okay; I don't consider myself great. There's Woody Allen and Aaron Sorkin. There's Quentin Tarantino. I'm not ever gonna be on that level. But I do consider myself a good filmmaker.

Making 'The Invitation' and waiting to make it on my terms and getting final cut and doing it the way I needed to do it was incredibly challenging, but it has really been so great for me. I'm so thankful that that's happened, that I got to work with actors I really like and have just such a good experience in delving into that story.

I consider myself more of a writer than I do a director.

I work really hard on every character and do everything in order to make it look authentic.

I'm going to call WWE like I call everything. Yes, I'm going to be passionate. Yes, I'm going to be excited, but at the same time, I'm hoping to get better as a storyteller, and I'm hoping to complement the people I work with who have been doing this a lot longer than I have.

Good musicals, a strange world, seem so easy. People say, 'Ohhh, it's magic.' Nothing's magic. A thing doesn't jell. Adapt. Change the rhythm. Shorten the scene. Rewrite the character. Maneuver the waters. Seeming easy is why so many shows aren't good.