Michael Pitt Quotes

With Kubrick and most film directors, they are in complete control, but one can influence them.

In every shoot, between the actor and the director there is manipulation. I'm not saying that negatively. It's healthy.

The nature of the beast is that film is a director's medium. It's not a Tracy Letts play, it's a John Wells film. 'August: Osage County,' as a play, is done. Written. On the shelf. It'll be performed in its entirety for years.

One of the things I wanted to do was direct. There've been a couple of times that a director will walk up and say something to me, and all it does is make me mad. Inside I'll go, 'Well, that wasn't helpful at all.'

Making movies was a real weird kind of adult experience. In a way it was like MIT, in that it was a great education. The big lesson is, people are people. They're smart, funny, creative people, but they're people.

When you're making a film, there are so many people involved that you get opinions and notes from people and you don't even know who they are. I find that quite difficult and it wears you down.

Films are not mathematics - that's the first thing you need to understand. At least, that's how I feel. They are not words on paper. Films are made with people, with teams and with individual bundles of creativity coming together to fulfill the vision of an individual who is the director of the film.

Young film makers should learn how to deal with the money and learn how to deal with the power structure. Because it is like a battle.

The filmmakers always have a great level of control.

I produce the way I would love to be produced: In ways to create the best conditions to make your movie, but also to create a space in which the director calls the shots.

When you make a movie, you can only make the movie that you would want to see.

Ten years ago, it was really difficult for a young actress to walk onto a set and disagree with the director and having that be OK and have a conversation about it and everyone be cool with it.

The only person who has artistic control is the director, and 'director' is how you spell God in Hollywood.

I try to do as much as I can, every facet of filmmaking.

I love producing shows. And so when you're on a show where other people are making decisions you don't necessarily agree with it, after a while you start to feel like a passenger.

In film, you're so much in the hands and at the mercy of the editor, so sometimes it's good to watch it just to see how it turns out - it can be so different than how you imagined it. But sometimes it's better to just let it go for your own sense of self worth.

The great thing about movies is that they're collaborative. And the worst thing is that they're collaborative.

Directors are our teachers, and I'm always craving to work with a great director. They're pretty much the first thing that interests me about a project. Let's put it this way: It'll take me a lot longer to read a script if there's no director attached.

You are treated like a cog in a machine. The director might be obsessing so much with the stunts that he doesn't notice your performance, and the producer may just be an insane money man, but I have no snobbery about the movies.

Audiences are an unknown mystery to me, so I can't really predict anything. For me, the best audience is myself, my crew, and the actors.

I make one film in three years, if I go wrong it will take me another three years to prove myself.

Actors are almost conditioned to get their director's approval. 'I just did my song and dance, boss. What did you think?' Actors are infantilized so much.

I definitely had some heated but extremely productive chats with screenwriter Justin Monjo, but while it's my story, it's their movie, so I have to allow for compression and poetic license.

I do a film only when I feel I will be comfortable with the set-up and other members of the team.

I've been acting for many years now, and I find there's nothing I enjoy more than making films with my friends and people I like, who also are the funniest people around.