Nick Davies Quotes

Good is the director who lets you do what you have to do.

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.

One of the things I'm adamant about as a bandleader is not micromanaging. I'm an advocate for the concept of allowing everyone to be fully vested in what they're doing, so everyone contributes whatever they're inspired to contribute.

I love actors and I feel like, if you usually allow people some say, most people, if they start to feel comfortable, they're going to have a voice. If they feel heard, then they will give back 10 times as much to you.

There's nothing worse than a director who feels more like a cop than a comrade, so I try to never give orders or create an environment where it's 'my way or the highway,' because actually allowing talented people to bring their originality and insight always brings more depth and complexity than if everyone has to do what you tell them to!

I like relaxed sets. I like to feel that I can make a mistake without feeling like I'm costing somebody money. I like a sense of freedom. I like it when people are open and are willing to let you do your work.

If you can create an environment where people are invited to do their best work and the best ideas always win, then the project itself will win.

I think the best directors provide you with a safe environment where they can instill you with confidence and allow you to try things out and not feel like you're failing or that you're doing it wrong.

I love to be individual, to step beyond gender.

When you work with directors who really love actors, who love their contribution, it feels amazing. But sometimes when you work with directors, you feel like you're in the way.

I can't work in an environment where it's a stiff hierarchy; that's not my kind of way.

HBO is really famous for hiring good people and staying out of their way until they ask for help, or need it. And that reputation is earned.

I'm not the kind of director who imposes his processes on everybody else.

I love working with smart-funny people.

A company is stronger if it is bound by love rather than by fear.

I've often heard people say that managing creative people is the hardest thing in the world. 'They're never happy, they drive up the cost of things, blah blah blah.' I just manage people the way I always wanted to be managed. That is, to be creatively challenged, but never to be told what to do.

I know that some actors and directors like to have intensity on set. I don't, particularly. Certainly, if they want that, that's fine, but I can't work like that.

All companies can benefit from fostering a more flexible environment (creating a place where the most talented, industrious, and entrepreneurial people want to work) and relinquishing hierarchical control to favor a results-oriented meritocracy.

Directors tend to kind of let me do what I want to do.

Command-and-control isn't the kind of corporate culture people want to be in anymore.

Competition is one click away. Innovation happens everywhere... you better have a culture asking for a voice.

I think it seems to be when I'm trusted, and someone just lets me have free rein - 'Do what you want, man' - that kind of confidence that directors instil in me always gets my best stuff out.

Denzel is the type of director that its more about working with him than working for him. He wants you to be thinking about everything.

In Bollywood, we are told exactly what to do and how to do it and not to counter things by saying there's a better way. We make our actors feel important by paying them more. But the real deal is when you let the actors take some decisions on the sets.

I make sure when I direct that it's a very joy-based set that hopefully is filled with a lot of respect.