Ayelet Zurer Quotes

I love writing. Given a choice, after directing for all these years, and if given an army of talented directors, I would not direct at all.

I want to act for the rest of my life - and I also want to pursue directing. Watching Bill Condon direct 'Twilight' kind of made me think, 'OK yeah, I really want to do this now.' This idea that you can make an image in your head and be in full control of how it comes out - I thought that was really cool.

As soon as I finished film school I was thinking about, how do I get to feature films? It took about eight years, and I'm still working. Feature films was not the end goal. Feature films was one of the stages. Getting to the point of the Coen brothers or Tarantino, where you're writing your own material and have the budget to do it properly, that's the end goal, and I'm close to that.

It's always the script first choosing roles. [Then] whoever else is attached. I never like to be the first person attached, because I don't really trust what's going on, unless there's a really good director.

If you look at any of the greats, from people like Paul Newman and Robert Redford to, you know, Brad Pitt - to get any of the kinds of roles like the ones that they've gotten, or just to be a part of any of the kinds of movies they've made, would be the end-all for me.

I'm the person who writes most of my movies so every role is exactly what I want to be doing.

I knew I wanted to be an actor but didn't know how to go about it. That's why my ambition, initially, was not to play a lead role in a Bollywood film.

Joseph Gordon-Levitt's career is kind of how I want to create my career. He's very involved with his recording and production company and also worked on some really great projects.

I'm actually thinking about acting lessons. If somebody says to me, 'You can be in the movies,' I'd be pretty happy.

I eventually want to write and direct and produce my own stuff.

The more I work in the film business, the more I see that those guys, the directors, have the most fun on set.

I feel very creatively satisfied and lucky that I get to write for other people, but for something I direct, it has to be something I completely understand every facet of.

You can make five massive hits in a row and still not get cast by the directors you want to work with, doing little movies. There are no guarantees. I'm trying to sign up and do movies that I'll be proud of, if it's my last one. That's how I think about it.

I was meeting a lot of directors and reading scripts, and I was like, "Well, I'd love to play this part," but I couldn't.

Maybe I'll just write books. I'd like to make another movie, but I don't want to go back and [do] what they want you to do, to make it for a million dollars. I did that. I don't need a lot, but I need what I used to get, and they don't give you that anymore.

I've still not gotten my choice of the best roles in the world.

I learned that you really don't have any control as a writer. Waah, waah, waah. Big deal. Unless you're the director on the movie, or putting up the money for the movie, you really don't have a lot of control. As someone who's just writing scripts, you just kind of have to shrug. I have no problems or issues with screenwriting in general. It is what it is.

I like working with a first time director. I'm more likely to work with a first time director than I am a second time director.

I've worked with Andre Techine lately and with a young unknown director on a short film. I choose my roles carefully.

If everyone's comfortable, you can pretty much make any kind of movie that the director wants.

There's no point in it unless it's a story that you really want to tell. It's a nebulous job. Unless you're doing it well, you're not doing anything. And there are a few of those. It's perfectly possible to be a passenger on a film set because if somebody else has written it, you can make nothing of that role and that's exactly what bad directors do.

I'm a frustrated actor. My ... goal is to beat Alfred Hitchcock in the number of cameos. I'm going to try to break his record.

Usually being a young actor, you've got to go through certain levels of hierarchy, going through bit parts and extra roles and then kind of progressing up the food chain and having the size of your roles grow in that sense.

There's a kind of unwritten rule: Don't say anything at all, and everything will be fine. It's a producer's medium. The directors aren't there to make any decisions. They're not going to change anything.

Actors can become very involved in a role, but for a director or producer, that's your life for many years.