James Dean Quotes

You have to play the character in the best way you know how and do what you need to do in order to bring that character to life and not worry about the millions of people that you may be disappointing!

By the way, everybody approaches acting differently. Like, I'm kind of sloppy and I like it kind of loose. I like to kind of play around. Some people don't.

I think as a filmmaker and as a director, you shortchange yourself if you inhibit the ability of your actor to bring their own personal experiences to the characters.

I love live theater. I get my rocks off by doing stand-up, and I am the only actor. But to show up eight times a week and not have that time for myself; to do someone else's lines? When I work for Wendy Wasserstein or Terrence McNally, Neil Simon or even Shakespeare, I do not have the right to change the lines.

It's very rare that you get a director that lets you be creative and bring what you feel your character should do or should be.

I actually want to do a theatrical adaptation of 'Hateful Eight' because I actually like the idea of other actors having a chance to play my characters and see what happens from that.

When you're acting, you can try your own ideas and be free.

That's what frees up an actor: when you don't have to be responsible to likability.

I think my ultimate directorial style is 'play.' In reference to theater, it's called a play - I believe in that noun, and the verb that goes with it.

This is one of the ways fiction is more liberating than nonfiction - I don't have to be so concerned with fact. I had the paradigm of certain people in my head who became my characters, but I never considered these people to be from a "certain sector of society," unless we agree that we're all from certain sectors of society.

One of the great things about working for Netflix is that they haven't placed any restrictions on content or artistically.

Ultimately I want to be able to create whatever I want whenever I want. And if that doesn't work, I don't mind just doing weird plays.

I saw several actresses play the part. I did not in fact, as far as I know, do anything that any of the other actresses did. I don't think actresses do that. I think that what we do is we see a role as a role, we don't see it as a person. We look at the role and think, 'What can I, as an actor, bring to that part?

When the individuality of the artist begins to express itself, what the artist gains in the way of liberty he loses in the way of order.

Sometimes what happens is that, when you micromanage actors and moments, it just doesn't quite live.

You can make anything into a play for the simple reason that the human mind is one of the best writers in the business. So, if you've got a writer who's clever enough to give you enough clues, you will fill out every blank spot in a play, every single one.

Every actor has to find space where they are free, in order to do good work.

There's things that I can do as an actor that I couldn't do in any other form of life and I've got a strange personality. But film requires strange people, so I've got a nice comfy home.

Your freedom as a writer is not freedom of expression in the sense of wild blurting; you may not let rip. It is life at its most free, if you are fortunate enough to be able to try it, because you select your materials, invent your task, and pace yourself.

These characters were like twelve-bar blues or other chord progressions. Given the basic parameters of Batman, different creators could play very different music.

We have access to more resources in general, and they are not going to force a situation on us, whether its the producer, or the cover, or what songs we have to play. And it's a small enough company that it seems like the people there care about music and not just about business.

I want an actor to try to give me what I ask in the best and most exact way possible. He mustn't try to find out more, because then there's the danger that he'll become his own director.

The director works as an interpretive artist, but he's still an artist, so you also have to give him room to create and to put his vision of the play or his translation or interpretation of the material on the stage.

I loved working when I worked at commercial art and they told you what to do and how to do it and all you had to do was correct it and they'd say yes or no. The hard thing is when you have to dream up the tasteless things to do on your own.

I think it's possible to be free in a big production. It's the eye of the director and the actor and the story.