James Gray Quotes

Directing is a tremendous art.

When I do a movie, I have the script. I know how it begins and how it ends. I know what my character does and where he's going. If I have ideas I want to express or changes I want to make, there's one guy: the director. It's different in television.

When I write a screenplay, and when I direct, I always pull lines out.

He was such a fabulous drama coach. What better person to have than Alfred Hitchcock? His work as a director was impeccable. I learned so much.

I have always believed that directing a film is like telling a story. You have to tell it well so that it is appreciated.

Directing was easy for me because I was a writer director and did all my directing when I wrote the screenplay.

I'm developing the stuff all the time. There's a film in my head. I'm imagining a film.

Filmmaking, whatever the window dressing or the scale of a film may be, is eventually about telling a story.

I am interested in people. I'm interested in telling stories, whether that is behind the camera or in front of the camera.

I've always been passionate about directing.

For me, storytelling is the most interesting part of movie making.

Working with George Miller was an education. It was eight college degrees in character development and directing all at once.

As a director, what I'm trying to do is to create interesting stories.

I thought Jack's directing job was the best thing about the film.

I never studied anything about film technique in school. Eventually, I realized that cinema and theater are not so different: from the gut to the heart to the head of a character is the same journey for both.

I'm someone who has a singular goal in making films: I want to tell a story. There are certain stories that I want to tell.

I'd say I'm definitely an actor first and foremost, but I love filmmaking.

I love more than anything looking at a movie scene by scene and seeing the intention behind it.

The storytelling in a movie is in the cut; it's in the edit. It's not an actor's job, really. Your job is such a tiny little thing, and I love the feeling of juggling or tightrope walking.

I love film and TV, the medium of them, just because it's such a smaller screen. It's much more precise. Ideally, I'd like to do maybe a film a year of some sort and use that to work more in the theatre because theatre really is my first love.

I like the detail work of telling a story in small pieces, as is done in movie-making, and also the long leap of faith needed to see a theatre performance through each night. Both require focus and self-discipline.

It's a director's job to tell a story and he's very well versed in telling stories with a bit of comedy in them and keeping the pace of the movie right and that's exactly what he did. He was observant of a world he didn't understand but he told a wonderful story.

I discovered that, in order to write a magnificent piece, you should shoot the images because once you are filming, you are writing the script in your mind.

Anybody can direct a picture once they know the fundamentals. Directing is not a mystery, it's not an art. The main thing about directing is: photograph the people's eyes.

My interpretation of a strong director is someone who knows their story. That's what directors are, they're storytellers because they're directing where your focus is going to be as an audience.