Nani Quotes

I grew up on film sets but more around the process of making films. I saw a lot of the editing process and the writing process, which takes years. That really affected me growing up, that side of it.

I actually had some funny dialogue [ in Stardust Memories], a little piece, and we shot all day in this big ballroom. Gordon Willis was the director of photography, and at the end of the day, Gordon turned to Woody Allen and said, "We cannot accomplish all of this in this space. It's impossible." And we'd been rehearsing and trying to shoot this thing all day. So Woody said, "Okay, let's do something else." He looked at me and said, "Come back tomorrow, I'll put you in something else." And he did.

A movie is never any better than the stupidest man connected with it.

I've always been fascinated with everything behind the camera and in front.

Lots of movies don't kind of work as well as they do on the page.

People don't talk about how hard it is to make a movie. Nobody does. Ever.

I don't know how anyone ever makes a good movie. It's a miracle every time.

One of the great advantages of my time spent in movies and in basically every role possible, both in front of the camera and behind the camera, that I've gotten to see all these different ways that people work and the way movies are constructed from the inside out, from beginning to end.

Number one, I am a true movie maker. And, you know, I am very much - I don't want to say infatuated, but I'm impressed with the art of making a movie and invoking emotion. You know, when I started making movies, I thought it was easy, and then when I got into it, I was like, 'This is not easy at all.'

We always set out to just make a great movie.

When I did 'Gilbert Grape,' Lasse Hallstrom let me be on the set with him and in the editing room and in the casting sessions and so on. And so I got a firsthand, rather intimate, high-pressure look at how to make a film.

A lot of independent films try to pull off a 14-day shooting schedule, which I think is ridiculous. No matter how big or small you are, it really kills whatever sort of time you get to allow the actors to find their characters, and to spend time to think about what they're doing.

I always enjoy shooting for all my films.

Every time we make a movie, 'Guardians' included, 'Black Panther' included, 'Infinity War' included, we just feel lucky to be making that movie, and that's basically what the focus is on.

We just started filming 'Stray Dog' really close to the finishing of 'Winter's Bone,' down in Southern Missouri.

Imagine you wake up one morning with a knock at the door, and when you answer, there's Denzel Washington announcing that he's going to be filming on your street for several weeks.

Finding one good script is a huge challenge. So I do a film whose script comes and grabs me. Once I finish that, I look forward to the next movie.

Making 'Sweetback' took an exorbitant amount of energy and time.

I just love the process of filmmaking.

As much as I love movies, it would be presumptuous of me to think that I know how to make one.

When you make motion pictures, each picture is a life unto itself. When you finish and the picture is over, there's an understanding, a realization that we'll never be assembled this way again. That these relationships are severed forever and ever. And each of these films is a little life.

There are shots that I had to walk away from because we had to get the movie in the theaters. There are some in "Independence Day" and "Godzilla," but lately I got smart. I would plan it so I had enough time [to get it right]. That just comes with experience.

My father used to describe how he'd love going, early in the morning, out on a location and waiting for the trucks to arrive and the circus to come to town. That's what it's like, every day, when you're making a film. It's the magic.

In the old days when I first was coming up, you would turn up on set in the morning with your coffee, script, and hangover and you would figure out what you were going to do with the day and how you were going to play the scenes. You would rehearse and then invite the crew in to watch the actors go through the scenes. The actors would go away to makeup and costume and the director and the DP would work out how they were going to cover what the actors had just done.

When you're making a movie, you feel like a very small part of something that you really don't have much influence upon. You roll in, you do your thing, and then you're gone.