Peter Hedges Quotes

When I make a live-action movie, it's a very physical process. It's like running a marathon.

I am eternally impressed and amazed by what directors do.

Making 'Beloved' was an awesome experience.

Really top-notch directors, I've often worked with them just to see how they work.

When I was younger I didn't really know what a director did: I knew I loved movies and I figured the actors made it up! And then when you get to 12 years old you start thinking, What does a director do? It was really an organic beginning: this looks like something I want to do, I can't believe people get paid to do it!

Film work can be very interesting, but it also can be awfully boring because who creates the film? The actors? No. It is the director. It's his piece of work.

I got a lot of energy from directing the film 'Ladies In Lavender.' You wonder if you have the stamina because as an actor you can lounge around the trailer during the scenes you're not in, but as a director, you're there from first thing in the morning to last thing at night every day of the week. I found it incredibly energising.

I loved being behind the scenes and finding out how they make movies.

After directing movies, I respect any director in this world, because making a movie as a director is tons and tons of work.

I don't make movies because I love to act. I make movies because I like to make movies, and I like to be a part of that process.

I realized the exciting place was behind the camera with the producer, director and so on.

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

You could get in rehearsals, pre-production, anything that would actually contribute to the understanding of how a film gets made. I actually find those things increase people's interest in a movie and like that better than worrying about showing the tricks behind the curtain.

When you direct your first film, you always start by telling stories that you are familiar with.

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

I probably learned, being in 'Taxi Driver' before I made my first film, I would come to the set every day just to watch how that film came about. It's like a graduate course: it's terrific. You talk to the cinematographer during the breaks. You ask the electrician why they are doing this.

I made movies with some very nice people, experienced actors.

I've always been fascinated with everything behind the camera and in front.

I love the process of working with a filmmaker and the writers and the actors.

If you're writing a screenplay for a feature, you don't have any involvement with the casting process, the editing process, the set design, the costume design, or any of that stuff.

One of the great advantages of my time spent in movies and in basically every role possible, both in front of the camera and behind the camera, that I've gotten to see all these different ways that people work and the way movies are constructed from the inside out, from beginning to end.

I know how to write a movie. I know how to direct a movie.

It's great to have a good relationship with the directors and learn about things you do with cameras, and how you direct.

The idea of directing my own movie is definitely more challenging than choreography.

You never have any idea where your movie's going to go when you're shooting - you're in this little bubble. Everything you care about is getting the next step right: getting the script right, finding the right actors, shooting it. Then you spend half a year in a dark room editing your film, and you don't talk to anybody.