David Fincher Quotes

I identify in some measure with each of my characters.

In all my characters, I try to find an iota of myself, and in Castle, I found a lot. He gets away with a lot, so that's fun.

I shoot people in a way that makes the audience feel equal to them. And it's hard to express and it's hard to execute but I think it works on every level - the choice of the material the choice of the actor, my relationship with the actor, and so on.

No one believes this, but when I'm working, it's the same, whether I'm working on 'Bad News Bears,' 'Before Sunset,' 'A Scanner Darkly,' or 'Fast Food Nation.' I'm the same person, trying to make it work.

Often people going into directing want to learn as much as they possibly can about "technique." And I say the hell with that.

I made some shorts that I'm not in. I think because I write so many short stories, it's not that hard to come up with characters that are not me. But my way into making movies has been through performing. My very first short film, I played a child and her own mother. So in some ways, to me, my great achievement so far is just that I've gotten all these other people to play the other parts. That's what makes it a real movie.

I go out and look for a good story to tell and if I like it enough and I decide to direct it, I become dangerously involved in becoming a part of that story.

If we get caught up in a story, it's because we've started to care about the characters, and that can only happen if we've moved beneath the surface.

I think it's very easy to disgust the reader with violence on the page - that's incredibly easy - but it's far harder to make a reader care about a character.

You read a script, you try and think through what is the best, most wide-ranging way of telling the story: who stylistically, character-logically, psychologically fits inside the world of what you're trying to do. A lot of it, when you're casting, is trying to get yourself in the head of a director.

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

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.

In terms of the characters I think are really fun to play, a lot of times it's someone in my head saying 'I know that woman.'

I usually don't find myself reacting to my characters. I just create them ... And let the audience decide whether they're empathetic or scared or compelled to cheer me on.

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!

I care about all the characters I play, and I get quite defensive about them.

When I write a screenplay, and when I direct, I always pull lines out.

I think I'm drawn to films more as a director with a directorial mind even as an actor. I make movies to make the films, not to act.

Honestly, I really, really love making movies. It's so much fun, and I love losing myself in the moment and just being there with other actors. When you're truly in the moment and you're feeding each other, it's such an exciting thing to be a part of.

When you look at a movie, you look at a director's thought process.

I'm in awe of directors like the Coen brothers who can shoot their script and edit it, and that's the movie. They're not discovering the movie in postproduction. They're editing the script they shot.

A script is only as good as the director who's making it.

Part of me becomes the characters I'm writing about. I think readers feel like they are there, the way I am, as a result.

With a film, I do my best to understand the author's intentions and try to bring the characters to life.

When I'm writing from a character's viewpoint, in essence I become that character; I share their thoughts, I see the world through their eyes and try to feel everything they feel.