F. Gary Gray Quotes

I am incapable of directing a film like 'Agneenath.' I can do only what I am good at, so I would have been the worst choice to direct it. It has aggression, action and an inherent violence in it - things I am not capable of directing in my films.

I wanted to tell a story that interested me as much in the telling as in the watching.

The technology available for film-making now is incredible, but I am a big believer that it's all in the story.

You are always hoping that movie audiences are interested in characters and interested in story values rather than just mindless special effects. But you never know.

A good story is a good story no matter who wrote it.

You can have a bunch of great actors in a film, but if you don't have anyone telling a great story, it's a moot point.

When I made 'Real Steel,' the director actually had the robots in the monitor, so he knew where everything was. So technically, there's been advancements. But at the end of the day, movies are about story and characters, so all the other stuff is great, but unless you have those two elements, then you've got nothing.

The idea that an author can extricate her or his own ongoing life experience from the tale being written is a conceit of very little worth.

As a filmmaker, you realize that places have character based on their history as much as a face does or an actor does.

You can have the greatest characters in the world and write beautifully, but if nothing's happening, the story falls on its face pretty quickly.

No other aspect of filmmaking has tempted me to do a film other than the script and the story itself.

I don't really make movies with an intention other than asking myself, 'Do I love the character, and do I love the story?'

Things that matter are a great story, entertainment, how the lead part moves the story forward and who the directors are.

What you want to do in a film is encapsulate the characters and the stories into one focused, coherent two-hour time block, and that's sometimes hard to do especially when you have a group as varied and distinctive as the 'X-Men' are.

When you make a movie, you have to make things denser, you have to build consequentiality.

A novel is both a story and a piece of writing. A movie is a story and a piece of filmmaking.

I think as storytelling has changed, you know, it's kind of turned into kind of hyper-reality movies.

Moviemaking is about telling a story. And you need to know what story you are going to tell.

What attracted me to 'Eclipse' was that it is a great story and a tremendous challenge for me as a filmmaker.

We need the villain sometimes. It makes for an interesting story.

We like epic stories, we like adventure, we like epic fights, so if you can mix a great story that can also really teach someone about a different experience, you have the potential to really help people.

It was a completely different experience working on 'Chhichhore' with Nitesh sir. The way he narrates and the way he directs actors is completely unique. He has that rare quality of blending a great story with finely-etched characters and an underlying message.

The movies I make, I never see them as accurately portraying a life, but more like fables.

Going from 'Dexter' to 'Powerpuff,' there was a lot of dialogue, there was a lot of... you know, we did action, of course, but I was getting burned out on the words, and both shows had this big, thick black outline.

As writers, our job is to try to create, in a fake space, something that feels true. That's just straight-up fiction: Invent a character that doesn't exist; make them seem like they do.