James Wan Quotes

I like to leave a little room to innovate and change things around while I'm working.

We have the script, we have the actors, and we're trying to figure out what this is, and you don't know what it is. You have to be open to what it's going to become rather than have this thing that you're trying to get to, which is boring.

A lot of young actors have the idea that, "I've got to do this right. There's a right way to do this." But there's no right or wrong. There's only good and bad. And "bad" usually happens when you're trying too hard to do it right. There's a very broad spectrum of things that can inhibit you. The most important thing for actors - and not just actors, but everybody - is to feel loose enough to create what you want to create, and be free to try anything. To have choices.

The spirit of jazz is the spirit of openness.

You know. I'll try anything. I'll do anything. I'll explore. Try different takes. All that kind of stuff to do sometimes, to do good performances, but always conducive to having a good time creatively.

We always have a take that's 'one for fun', so once you've got what you need, you can do what you like. Something does occasionally pop out of that tree. I'm always open to ideas.

The essence of play is that the sequence of actions is fluid and scattered.

Producing a series is like being Lewis and Clark: You know where you're going, you just don't know how you're going to get there. When people say, 'You should create a bible for your show,' I say, 'You don't want a bible. It'll prevent you from making discoveries along the way.' And that's what happened on 'The X-Files.'

I like to reinvent with each project, in any which way possible.

I'm not a planner. I like to try something different, to just see what happens.

I am always living in the now, so I like what fate brings to you. That's always fun for me. To have a process and someone be like, 'How about this?' And you just grab onto that and see where it takes you.

I prefer my hesitations, my false paths, my stammering, to a preconceived idea.

I think the philosophy will continue to be what it always was; which was, let's keep throwing a bunch of things at the wall, and see what sticks.

As much as you know it, and you know the method, you can pretty much do what you want. No idea is going to be shot down. You just put it in the garbage later. You have to say the lines in many different ways. So they have a lot of material to work.

I will just create, and if it works, it works, and if it doesn't, I'll create something else. I don't have any limitations on what I think I could do or be.

I'm always open to new stuff. I don't sit and try to figure out what to do, I just wait for an idea to come.

It often feels like a tremendous amount of work is required to get an idea moving forward, like pushing a train uphill. But at a certain point, the thing takes on its own momentum, and takes unexpected turns. So it's that feeling of holding on, rather than pushing it, that is the most exciting thing. It's that need to occasionally bounce off the walls, letting anything happen for any reason, and having nothing to guide you that is the joy.

What makes people and companies and artistic directors and choreographers interested in working with dancers is the ability to kind of let go of everything you think you know and be a blank canvas.

Sometimes we can make everything a little too perfect. I always was a fan of giving direction, but every now and then going, "I don't know. What do you think? Let's see what happens."

It's impossible for me to feel like there's only one way to do a thing. There's nothing wrong with having one way of doing it, but I think it's a bad habit. I believe in range. Like, there's a lot of tunes that I play all the time-sometimes I hear 'em in a different register. And if you don't have complete freedom, or you won't let yourself get away from that one straight line, oh, my goodness, that's too horrible to even think about.

I think there are actors who are like, 'Okay, what am I doing, how am I doing it, what's the appeal? Tell me what to do, what are the exact lines from the script? Okay, I got it.' I am not that way. I would be a terrible bus driver. I'd want to be like, 'Oh, let's take this side road! Let's see what happens when we go down this back alley.'

We go in and I do my thing, and then we supplement it with whatever we want.

I've never had a grand plan. I've only just tried to keep open to many different possibilities, have fun and work with people who are passionate about what they do.

I really like to experiment. That's the only way I can work. It's instinctive.

I try not to do anything by formula.