Tim Heidecker Quotes

I grew up on movie sets, I'm comfortable on sets. A movie set is like a circus. I don't understand why moviemaking has to be such an insane environment.

I think the whole DVD craze has provided opportunities for material that, for those interested in it, explains the whole history and background in getting a film made, which is great.

What's nice about what we have is when you enter the set, the world of film, it becomes this real cocoon, very different from all the publicity. That's the fun part.

I love watching reality TV, but being part of making it was just demoralizing.

You hear about actors being late and all that sort of stuff, but you never find that with an actor who's directed, because an actor who's directed understands all the problems your production is going through.

It's always funny to watch the scene that you know took a thousand takes.

Making films is much more difficult than people imagine, and so the experience of actually directing them is not one I've ever relished.

Directors don't get to see other directors at work - they're the only one on the set. I've met directors who've asked me what another filmmaker is like. So, there's probably nobody better placed to make all the comparisons and to pick up stuff than an actor.

You never know as a director what other directors do. Because you don't get to see what they do.

Generally I try to be on set as much as possible, especially during the early part of a season. I read all of the outlines and scripts and look at the auditions and the cuts for my other shows and give notes on all of that. There's a lot to do, but I enjoy nothing more than being on set because that's where the magic happens.

I noticed while working on Green Lantern that the actor - albeit forefront in the film, obviously, and the key focus for the audience - is kind of the smallest cog in the machine when you're shooting.

It's interesting for me to do the commentary with the actors because, as a director, you're so in your own world that you see it from your perspective, your issues and what you were trying to do, and then it's really very fun to hear their perspective on how it was to do a particular scene or how they felt, and sometimes, I didn't even know that, at the time.

It's a product of being an actor, you know? A lot of your work doesn't end up on camera and some of the best things aren't always in the final product. But yeah, a lot of my stuff got cut and it was painful, but I know it was for the better of the movie.

When you make a movie it's always interesting, because you end up in places you never would as a normal visitor or tourist.

There's obviously something that feels very good about being with a new filmmaker who's very excited, but I also think there's something very comforting in a director who's been around a few times. Both have their pros and cons.

Even the most humble role, I've always felt really wildly grateful to be getting anywhere in film business.

I was the offbeat character that had to kiss the offbeat boys and, ugh, some of the boys they brought in. There was one boyfriend in particular, we had to climb a mountain, and he was just weird and awful, and I hated it. So the producers left a big bag of Hershey Kisses after that taping saying, "Here are some kisses you will actually enjoy. Thanks for doing this." Isn't that so nice?

I realized that there was an actual job of making movies. They weren't created by elves.

To be an actor and a director, I actually felt it helped me tremendously to be in the scenes of The Hollars, because as you can see, they're very intimate, very intense scenes. You don't want to break the actor's character and you don't want to break their momentum, so as the actor, I tried not to call cut as much as I could, and almost make it feel like a play, just set this environment where these amazing actors could do what they wanted to do.

Movies are certainly a director's medium, so getting the opportunity to work with really good directors is everything to me.

You see the movie with the music and the editing and all the parts that you weren't there for when it was being filmed, and you really appreciate all the names that are scrolling by. You realize that you accomplished so much.

It was easy and fun [filming in Hail, Caesar!], and I think it's easy to be intimidated by the Coen brothers, because they're quiet. They don't heap praise, especially upon themselves. It's not like they're walking around thinking they're the greatest thing on Earth.

A weird thing about being an actress is that shooting movies doesn't feel like watching movies. It feels like being in a warehouse.

I did 50 takes on Robert Shaw assembling the Greener Gun on 'Jaws.' The shark wasn't working, so I just kept shooting to make the production report look like we were accomplishing something and to keep cast and crew from going crazy from boredom. It was a strategic indulgence.

In the business of acting, those are the actors that make the trains run on time, you know? There's nothing without them.