Mira Nair Quotes

The most important question in American cinema, I've learned, is 'When is lunch?'

We all know that people who've never been on a film set think it's way more glamorous than the people who work on them.

There's nothing like walking onto a Hollywood sound stage.

Sitting at the table during Color Purple and looking up and suddenly realizing I was acting in front of Steven Spielberg, was pretty cool. It was pretty good.

People have a different idea of how movies are made than they really are.

I love to look at The Graduate, or Lawrence of Arabia, or things I had nothing to do with. But you could not get me to go back and watch movies that it was a privilege just to be around them when they were being made.

Movies are the work of a collective conscious. It takes 500-800 people on a movie to complete a vision.

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 don't really care where I work, actually, because you know making a movie is like living in movie world. There's such a secluded world, and the director is the king ruling the country, and everybody's building this little town to speak in symbolism.

You can't make a movie about making movies - it's boring.

Maybe there should be less of a mystique around making movies. I just don't think that there's any real mystery there.

In films I might look glamorous, but I've been in hair and make-up for two hours.

I loved being on the set with my stepfather. I loved the magic of movies. I went on the set of 'The Mod Squad' - I mean, can you imagine? Just walking into a living room and then walking behind the living room, and it's just flat. There's nothing I love more than being on a sound stage.

My mom's a screenwriter, and before that, she was an actress, and my father was an actor; my stepfather was a director, so I was on sets a lot as a kid. I loved the magic of the set. You walk in, and it's a living room, and you walk outside, and it's just a piece of wood held up by another piece of wood.

When we were doing 'Criminal Justice,' they were filming 'Clash of the Titans' nearby and we kept nicking off to their catering tent and going, 'Look what they've got!'

It's such a thrill walking onto a film set.

We always set out to just make a great movie.

We use all the takes that no one would ever use and often the moments before we say action, or before we say cut. No one's ever called and complained or anything like that. Everyone's just so grateful to get the work and to be on TV and all that.

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.

To be fair, it's not even the first time I've seen a dead version of myself. There was one on Harry Potter, on the last movie, that they actually used to bring to set in a body bag.

Hollywood is responsible for some of the greatest and worst movies of all time!

Directing is monumentally complicated and it's a function of all the time you pay to it. I think it would be great to do a movie I'm not in, I could just eat Fritos and just say, 'yeah, it's good!' Some day.

Wray Nerely, the character in Con Man, he actually had a role in Rogue One, but he got cut. It sucked. John Swartz, the producer, is a big fan of Con Man. I even got to screen Con Man while we were shooting Star Wars. They had a theater there, and they let me screen one of the little 10-minute episodes for everyone. What sucked was I had to follow Star Wars.

Gian Luigi Polidoro and his girlfriend had written this script, it was an American comedy, and they decided I was the guy to play the part. I was young, they offered me the lead in the film, and I said, "Sure, I'll do it." And I'm telling you, there is a movie waiting to be made about the making of a movie like that, particularly at that time in New York. I mean, we shot all over the streets of New York without permits. We would literally grab a shot and run. But Rent Control... I think the total cost was $100,000, and to this director's credit, I think it looks like $200,000.

You live and die two or three times making a movie. First, you write it, and the first pivotal moment comes when you can get it made. The second is in the process of making it, when the movie reveals itself to you, its flaws and its virtues. Then the most unnerving moment is when that movie is then launched into the world. It’s like bringing your kid to the first day at school and somebody points out that it has bowlegs, it is cross-eyed, or it’s gorgeous. You feel very exposed.