Phyllida Lloyd Quotes

I don't think I know enough about acting to direct. You need to be a slight megalomaniac, not where you want to take over the world, but where you want to make every single decision and the buck stops with you. It's an awful lot of stress.

I appreciate my role as an actor much more after I direct because it's just easier.

For me, I had to overcome shyness to be an actor. But as a director, you lose your subjectivity, your self-consciousness. And instead of just your role, it's the life of the whole play that becomes a reflection of you.

I would love to direct one day. I value the relationship that I have with a director so much, and I would be really excited to be on the other end of that relationship.

I love being creative. I love acting, but I also love directing because you get to have a vision for the whole and bring that vision to fruition.

I enjoy directing more when I don't have to direct myself. I like when I can just be the director.

I've certainly worked with really great directors who haven't acted.

I don't really understand why everybody doesn't want to direct. It's an absolutely fascinating combination of skills required and puzzles set on every possible level, emotional and practical and technical. It calls upon such a wide variety of skills. I find it completely absorbing.

The point of having a director is that they make the final decision; it's their point of view, they set the rhythm and they make the final decisions.

For me, acting is like a holiday. When you're directing, you have a strong sense of responsibility for others. It's exciting but exhausting, especially when you're like me: always wanting to break the rules.

Definitely directing is the thing I like the most because this is where everything you know can be used. It's the most personal process ever. It's the most demanding one, but again, rewarding.

Going to directing wasn't a reaction away from acting as much as it was a move towards something I always wanted to do. Ever since I was a kid, I was interested in the camera and how it worked and why one director would place it in this part of the room and then another would place it in that part of the room.

As an actor, your focus is very finite. All you're worried about is your character and what you have to do, what your goals are in this scene and in this piece of material. Whereas, as the director, everything is your responsibility. I enjoy carrying the load like that and being the responsible party.

Directing feels great; I'm really happy to be doing this.

I would say that the energy on set is always the energy of the director because he's the boss.

I was constantly reading books about how to direct, and asking directors, 'How do you do it?' And when I finally actually started doing the work, it seemed like you have to be decisive and have an opinion. But also you have to be a good collaborator and hire the right people to shore up whatever your skill set is.

I wanted to direct more than I wanted to act. And I found I couldn't do everything.

Fortunately, I have an amazing partner that allows us to do these different things, who will be directing an episode himself soon, I'm sure. But, it's amazing. I love directing and I think that it allowed me to get closer to the actors and actually work with them on a level that I haven't before, and really get down there with them. I would jump at the chance to do it, anytime I could.

After I directed, when I went back to being an actor, I was like, 'God, this is the life!' Because you only have to concentrate on one thing.

I had a philosophy, which may have been proven right, that directing isn't as hard as everyone says it is.

When you are acting, you are just one piece of the puzzle. You don't see how everything fits together. It feels like you have less authorship over the entire product. In directing, you take the entire picture into account, so you're challenged in a different way.

I do like directing other people's material.

All the films I do, I write the scripts, I direct.

I think this last film I finished, 'The Butler,' is the closest I will come to as a work-for-hire.

When you direct a movie, you're basically looking at a story, the way you want to look at it. You bring that director's vision, and I'm totally open for that.