Toby Jones Quotes

A good director's not sure when he gets on the set what he's going to do.

All good actors are unpredictable, and a little crazy in a good way, because they feel more secure playing other people than themselves.

I'm not prejudiced about what type of movies I'm in, what form they take or whether they're studio or independent. I just want to make films that are going to be good.

Yeah, it is, because it's a real discovery of your inner resources, you know. That's what my character is all about and what my playing is all about. But to get up there and just go inside and draw out something that makes you feel good first and foremost.

I feel like a good director provokes you to ask questions about your character, but doesn't answer them for you.

Your own barometer is all you have to go by, and often what makes a good director is knowing when not to say something. On occasions you can find yourself on a film set where the person who is wearing the director's hat is only trying to justify his position.

I never want to repeat myself. I can't imagine anything else as upsetting as realizing I'm redoing something I did before. For some reason, when it comes to film, I'm very good at not repeating myself. Even though in the rest of my life, I'm constantly repeating my mistakes.

A lot of directors don't know what they want to do. Every director I've seen that was a good director that I've admired knew exactly what he wanted to do. They didn't sit there and think about it.

'Senna' took five years, 'Amy' took three years. You try and say, 'Look, there's no deadline.' That's important. Just saying, 'We've got to make the film. And once the film's ready, it will be out there.'

To be a good director, you have to have good life experience. I'm getting there.

I learned what I really love is making films, not the film business. I want to be on the set, meeting with writers, I want that freedom. I love it now.

I don't think I make decisions as an actor based on what I think the fans will or will not want at this point.

When I meet a good actor, I would like to be a director. When I meet a good director, I would like to be an actor. When there is a good script, I would like to be both a director and an actor. The switch is very natural, not intentional.

It is none of anyone's business how I make my films or my creative partnerships.

I can only control what I can, which is what I'm able to do as an artist.

Let film-makers take a call about what films they want to do.

Sometimes I make films about scenes other filmmakers would leave out, so I just make the film out of all the things they wouldn't put in. Poetry allows you to do this more than prose, for example.

If we pretend to respect the artist at all we must allow him his freedom of choice , in the face, in particular cases, of innumerable presumptions that the choice will not fructify.

Any time you turn off and let someone else make any artistic decision for you, you make a mistake.

Every movie I've ever made has just kind of come together.

I will not allow anyone to take anything off my palette but if I do then within that, I can be creative.

We were looking to collaborate with someone on both those fronts [ writing and directing] and it ended up just being me [in Brief Interviews with Hideous Men]. So, at this point, it's the epitome of a passion project and I just hope people like it.

A director is what a director wants to be. If you want to force something, you can fight to the death and maybe get fired, but it's your job to help push things along.

When you write a novel or paint a picture, you have the opportunity to approach it and back off, tear up pages, write, rewrite, paint over, and come back to it. In film, once you start shooting, you can't restart the clock, and you keep moving forward, and you don't look back, and you don't go back. And that is, of course, antithetical to the creative process. It's really hard to generate a comfortable creative flow under that kind of pressure.

It's a really unique situation where you just - you make independent films or you make big blockbuster movies, but it's very rare when all of those ingredients come together, and you can really tell a story that you care about with a character you absolutely love with the people you love making movies with.