John Malkovich Quotes

Some directors are very free and some directors are very specific. It seemed like doing a play.

I've always believed that the director does whatever the hell he wants. That's what you sign on for as an actor - I can't stand it when you have actors who are trying to leverage directors into doing things they don't want to do.

Why hire these geniuses if they're forced to stick with the script? You want to empower your actors as collaborators.

At dramatic rehearsals, the only author that's better than an absent one is a dead one.

Sometimes directors will hire you and say, 'Oh, we love your work.' And then they start to tell you how to do it. I say, 'Hey, man, back off. You hired me to do it. Let me do it.'

I tell directors, 'I can't promise you a hit, but I can promise you the movie is going to be yours.' When you work for a studio, they pay you a lot of money, but in exchange for that, they tell you what to do.

When you haven't met someone, regardless of whether they're an author or not, when you're taking their work, and you are in some way filtering it or interpreting it, of course there's potential for them to feel that you have, in some way, not lived up to what it could have been.

The final product in a play is not just the written word. It's the production, the performance. The script is, of course, a very important piece; but it's only one element. Ultimately, yours is one of several voices. People can change your work in a play for better or worse.

As a director, I design every movie to be true to itself, and damn it if they like it, and damn it if they don't.

In 'Blood Work,' they made choices I wouldn't have made, but I'm not a filmmaker. I took the money, and they told the story.

For 'The Book Thief,' I wanted only one outcome, and that was for the director to follow his own vision, just as I had.

It's so amazing that you can give somebody like David Fincher 'House of Cards,' and he can do whatever he wants - Netflix doesn't say, 'Oh, you can't do that,' or, 'We need a subplot here about this.' It's pretty neat that it is allowing the creatives to be creative.

I'm not going to release something just because they think it's the next hit. It's not what everyone wants to hear, but that's the way it is.

The vision people have of a director is completely flawed - someone with a crystalline vision of everything they're going to do. How boring would that be? It's a creative and collaborative process.

The actors work out how to create the show with me during the rehearsals. They owe it to themselves and each other to maintain that contract regardless of what the critics say.

You can't write a thing that is hermetically sealed; there has to be a way for the audience to get in and participate. I think that's a massively valuable discipline for any artist.

To be true to a play, you can't add something that takes away from the author's intent.

Spike Lee is a master of tone, so basically, if he wants to do something, he should do it, and Imma listen.

It's strange not to allow the actor some input and breathing room into what was written on the page - it is their job to make it come alive.

I always say I want creative control. A lot of people don't think about that. And that's what every artist should think of - being creative and not just a puppet.

The key is you don't want to control the controlled stuff too much and you don't want to be too free flowing in uncontrolled situations. That can be a contentious issue with some directors. The joy of my career is I've gotten to work with great directors who get that balance.

When I started off as a choreographer, I had to do songs, which I may have wanted to do differently, but directors had their own inputs to give. But now, I take liberty to decide my own dance steps as well.

I haven't been a director-for-hire for any project. I work with people who appreciate that, understand that, and want to work that way.

We got full artistic integrity and autonomy over what we were doing, and that was the main important thing that kept our band alive.

As a composer, I only give directors tunes I'm happy with.