Colin Farrell Quotes

Some of our favorite films are obviously not written by the person who directed it. And yet a 'Taxi Driver,' or some Nicholas Ray movie, like 'In a Lonely Place,' seems so personal or obsessive or whatever.

The best films are because of nobody but the director.

I made 'Batman' the way I made every other film, and I've done it to my own satisfaction - because the film, truly, is exactly the way I wanted it to be.

I do believe very much in movie as a one-man-show. I think that where I've watched movie go wrong, it's usually because the dread committee has been interfering with it.

Going to directing wasn't a reaction away from acting as much as it was a move towards something I always wanted to do. Ever since I was a kid, I was interested in the camera and how it worked and why one director would place it in this part of the room and then another would place it in that part of the room.

As an actor, we can only do what the director wants. Only the director has a vision of the entire film.

I don't think film is the writer's medium, and so I was interested to see what a director would do with it.

Every director works differently but one thing's important: they must have a vision. If they don't have a vision I don't care how they work.

My analysis of the situation was that Roman Polanski wasn't trying to break us down or get a performance out of us by destroying us. He was absolutely, very simply, trying to recreate this clear picture in his head. And the pictures he creates are absolutely perfect, and they are exactly what he saw in his head.

He [Oliver Stone] is great. I really like working with directors who know what they want and aren't afraid to tell you, "Do it like this. Don't do it like that."

Not write, maybe develop. Direct, sure. As an actor, you work on so many films, you sort of start to see who directs well and who doesn't.

An Ingmar Bergman film would probably owe a sizeable bulk of its import and its direction and its quality to the directorial end and to the director because it's uniquely a Bergman film. But that again is not the general - no, that's much more the exception than the rule.

To make what you have in your head, I think that's what directing is.

In film, it's up to the director to tell the story in whatever way he sees fit, and however you fit into that ultimate vision is where you fit in. So what you did on that stage, on that set, may not be what you ultimately see when you see the final product. And TV works so fast, it works so fast, it's just about product. The average TV show, one episode shoots eight, 10 days. That's it. You get three or four takes for a scene, and then it's over. But people do it for the money.

I was paying attention to where Steven Soderbergh had the camera and his shots. I was blown away.

With film, so much is in the director's hands. Once something is cut together - unless you're in the editing room - you don't really remember what the alternatives are.

Of course I would change anything if John Cassavetes said so - it's his script. But he was very easy about that.

I think directing is a huge responsibility and it's not something where you can just be like, "Yeah, sure, I'll give it a go!" I think it's something you really need to focus on, and put a lot of effort and attention into.

I like directing much better. It's more fun, that's all there is to it. It's essentially the same job, which is storytelling, but you have more control over the way you want to tell the story. It's a high. I love it.

I'm the most experienced cinematographer in this medium, so there's no point in having that extra conversation in the middle of the loop. You're making the film in relation to what's happening now, and you can't really affect what's happening now. It's not like you're in control of anything in front of the camera. If you're calling yourself the director and you're not the cinematographer, I think you're kidding yourself.

I can't imagine any director directing a screenplay of mine, because the great directors all have very personal styles, and the ones that don't are not very interesting directors.

I think that a lot of exciting elements are finding a place where a film is happily, truly about something.

I'm addicted to directing!

You shouldn't think of these movies as being 'The Lord of the Rings.' The Lord of the Rings is, and always will be, a wonderful book - one of the greatest ever written. Any films will only ever be an INTERPRETATION of the book. In this case my interpretation.

I didn't want to be a director for hire. It really just took me a long time to learn how to direct and to feel up to the job.