Lance Henriksen Quotes

Being on a movie set is like one long financial crisis.

They said, "You get $2 million to make the film, if you're not in it. If you are in it, you get $5 million to make the film." There was no way to make the thing for $2 million, so I made it for $5 million. And then, it turned out there was no way to make the thing for $5 million. That's when it got weird.

Sometimes little things can prolong an experience in a way that you run over budget. It's very scientific; a lot of people don't understand the science that goes behind making a film.

I'm always running around trying to raise money to make the films. Fortunately, I've been able to do that, but if I can't, at this point, it's not like I wanted to spend a lot of time putting together, you know, you spend a year of your life on something, you go, "What the hell am I doing that for?"

On Lock, Stock, we didn't know where the money for shooting the next day was coming from.

You can't do anything yourself on TV... unless you have a LOT of money, but you can do an independent movie.

Somebody once told me - and I could be wrong about this - that The West Wing was, on any given episode, $300,000 over, on average. Now today, if you were $10,000 over budget, they would cancel you. For sure.

It's a struggle. It's really, really hard. I'm already nervous for my next one. You have to put more and more movie stars in movies these days. And of course, I would like to have more than $3million to make it. But, again, if that's what I was offered I wouldn't turn it down. I guess studios know that. But I'm one of the lucky ones, I guess.

Invariably, what I'm trying to do is more ambitious than the budget, but we manage to do it somehow.

I have "fat-guy syndrome." If they give me $50 million to make a movie, I'll try to make it look like it cost a hundred. If they give me $60 million, I'll try to make it look like it cost $120.

I think part of making movies is dealing with restrictions of freedom and budget. I'd rather deal with restrictions of budget. It's better to feel free within any budget.

I look back on my life and it’s 95% running around trying to raise money to make movies and 5% actually making them. It’s no way to live.

I saw certain things that I think maybe other kids are protected from. Like, I saw my parents struggling. I knew that we were cutting out coupons and buying dented cans because they were cheaper. And all our furniture was from the garbage. It was just - and to me because I was a kid, all that stuff was really exciting.

When you raise the budget, you make creative compromises. The higher the budget goes, the more cuts in your movie happen. When people talk about how movies are watered down, that's a direct reflection of money and budget. The less money you spend; the more risks you can take. That doesn't mean it will be successful, but at least you can try different stuff. The higher your budget is, the less you can do that.

You spend most of your time as a director trying to move forward with the movie. It happens on a daily basis, if not more than once a day, that you are struggling with budgetary constraints. Whereas when you're writing, the limitation that you have is your imagination. So it's decidedly non-pragmatic.

It's not that much of a difference. Basically, your job is the same as a film director. It's a triangle between creativity, money, and time. But they don't really change. You're ultimately trying to get the most creativity and time with the money that you have.

I'm just glad that on a budget like this I don't have to make any of those hard decisions because I feel it must be a real job to direct this, as there's so much going on.

The Cable Guy was underbudgeted, so it was always a debate about whether we could have more days or certain things that we needed, because the budget was determined before the script was written. So that made it a hard production on everybody. But it's also a funny thing, because it's one of those movies that cost $40 million to make and made $100 million around the world, but at the time, it seemed like a disaster that it didn't make hundreds of millions of dollars, because Jim was on such a tear. But it was actually a successful movie.

I very much enjoy my freedom creatively but I also would love to make one of those big Hollywood films that costs a lot of money and has a lot of people running around with cell phones and all that insanity.

Each year it grows harder to make ends meet - the ends I refer to are hands and feet.

Some people come to you because if you're in their movie, it'll help them raise money. And some people come to you because they think you're the person to play the part.

I'm just thinking of 2001, which I think is the most expensive independent film ever made - which is great, someday I hope I will do one. But I know the parameters when I got onto this project - I have to take care of everyone, make sure that they are all on board, and this process interests me.

That middle ground of films used to be 70, 80, 90, 100; now it's like anything over 20 or under 140, the middle ground has become this huge area where they don't really want to be.

To be honest, you have to do a big Hollywood film to get enough money to do a good independent film!