Tom Cruise Quotes

Filmmaking is such a collaboration. At a certain point, I suppose you do have to let go and trust the people you're working with.

It's true that I don't think I'd be a good director. If I were a director, I'd try to hire the best people I could and then leave them alone. I don't know much about cameras or lighting, so I'd make sure that I had a really good cameraman who understood lenses and lighting, and I say to him, "This is the scene we have to shoot and this is what I think it should be, you go do it." Same with actors. But really, very good directors who know everything do basically the same thing. They hire you and then they leave you alone.

Well, first of all, making films is a collaborative process. You need people. You need people you trust and love and who are your friends. People you can work with.

The director respects what they've hired you for and chosen you for: to do the part and respect what you're doing.

On my set, people have to respect the actor's process. I totally respect what actors do. I give them whatever time they need, and I never scream out directions from the camera. I take the time to walk up to them and talk to them personally.

I like it when people are kind and I like people who are looking for collaborators. Sometimes you can feel like a moving prop, and that could be amazing, you can be a prop in somebody's incredible vision, but I'm more interested in people who are looking for actors they can collaborate with and make something together with. I like stretching myself, I like trying new things out, but I'm really interested in working with directors who have a very specific style and a unique way of working.

Movies are hard to make, and you have to work toward a common ethic and do your best. You don't want to work with people who don't care or who are acting out some neurotic, crazy thesis on the set.

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

What is important to me is that people know I respect the business of making movies.

This was all very new to me and I did not want to ruin his film! So we worked hard on that basis of confidence that is needed to collaborate comfortably.

Netflix is amazing 'cause they trust the creator to do their job, and they trust us to do our job. They're really smart and just let us do our thing and deliver a great job.

I think, at the end of the day, filmmaking is a team, but eventually there's got to be a captain.

I'll work with a director if I think I'm going to get into a comfortable situation, and if it's someone I respect and who respects me, even if they're not so well known. Movies are hard to make, and you have to work toward a common ethic and do your best.

I see my actors as my collaborators.

I haven't worked with a director who is a crazy person at all.

From an animation perspective, it doesn't get better than Pixar. You're working so much in the blind because the huge circle of collaborators that's required to pull off a film like this means that you are just one small arc in that large circle. The level of trust that you have to give into is significant.

I never argue with any director. When they say something will click, I believe them.

When I work in a film like an actor, I do not interfere or try to use my seniority or impose anything on the filmmaker.

Any film is a collaborative process, you've got thousands and thousands of people working on it.

I have so much respect for Sam [L.Jackson] that if I had questions about anything, I would call and ask him if he agreed with me before I brought it up with Craig [Brewer].

I want to thank Gus Van Sant for selling out so that I could use his editor Curtis Clayton, who did a great job.

It was a pleasure to have somebody else be the boss. It wouldn't have been nearly as much fun any other way. He's been around and made a lot of movies and he's a great straightforward person to work for. And it was a pleasure to see other people to pick up characters that you've sketched out loosely on paper and make them into something fascinating.

You go in thinking you have to do this all by yourself, and what I learned was no, when you hire great people, they do so much for you.

I always get role models, people from real life who've lived the lives of the characters, and talk it through together, me, them and the actor, a lot. That helps. We certainly have our disagreements. But in the end we trust each other.

Everyone had coverage. You might have like three lines, but there were 10 people, so they would cover each person. Three lines could take 12 or 15 hours, but it was fun because everybody was together. As hard as it was to shoot those scenes, I always enjoyed when we were all together.