Danny Elfman Quotes

Applause is interesting, but I'm a monster with or without it. Something is either well written or it isn't. 'White Rabbit' is not well written, and no amount of applause or royalties can convince me it is. I could have done a better job with those lyrics. They didn't say what I wanted.

Does film music really matter to the average moviegoer? A great score, after all, can't save a bad film, and a bad score - so it's said - can't sink a good one.

Hollywood is still the mecca for good or bad, but it isn't the beginning or end for filmmaking.

I know if I wasn't making music and acting, I would be involved in the performing arts world in some way. I would be either writing and making music for other artists or producing movies.

Film is different for me now. If the money is good and it's not totally revolting, I'll do it.

When I shoot actors, I have that dilemma. I want the actor to be good, and sometimes I have to push them to a place that isn't pleasant. I always think: 'Is it worth doing for the sake of the movie?' But I have to remember the bigger picture.

As long as there's really good actors that use their clout to support fringe films, whatever genre it is, they'll still get made.

It's difficult to get films made, especially films about poets.

I was in New York. Hitchcock was in California. He rang me to make a report on his progress and said, I'm having trouble. I've just sacked my second screenwriter.

Songwriting is a give-and-take process, and it can lead to some good, healthy debates.

Normally, when people compose for film, you give them the film, and they look at it, and they compose it.

I've not used a score in any of my films so far.

I live making comics. Comics is an industrial art but less suffering, because comics are for young people who are more adventurous. I do that. I live off comics, and then I write books, but when you want movies, you cannot make movies without money.

Sometimes I'll write without the guitar or the piano, but most of the time I'll be playing and just improvising some words. And when I get something that sounds good, a line with a story in it, I'll try and tease it out and figure out where the story is going.

I have a really good relationship with Focus Features; we had a wonderful time working together on 'Sin Nombre.'

It's a good time to be making movies, despite the cynicism people have about Hollywood.

I've always been interested in film, so to get involved in any way in the genesis of making a film or music for a film is fascinating to me.

I like photography and I write; I also write music. One day I would like to direct [films] as well.

When you make movies, you've picked the most expensive art form, and somebody has to pay for it. You kind of owe it to them to at least let them know how you expect to make it as accessible to as many people as you can, given the story you're telling.

The writing of You've Got a Friend was one of the most incredible experiences because it was mostly inspiration. It just came to me almost as we hear it.

You can't make a movie about the artist without shooting outdoors.

I am an idealist. I often feel I would like to be an artist in an ivory tower. Yet it is imperative that I speak to people, so I must desert that ivory tower. To do this, I am a journalist - a photojournalist. But I am always torn between the attitude of the journalist, who is a recorder of facts, and the artist, who is often necessarily at odds with the facts. My principle concern is for honesty, above all honesty with myself.

But, it's much easier to do that than produce the movies from scratch. It excites the same thing in me, whether we build it from the ground up, or whether we come on when the movie is done or almost done. The idea of supporting the underdog and getting a smaller movie out there in a big way is equally exciting.

We don't make movies to make money, we make money to make more movies.

I think of myself as a songwriter, a weaver of story and imagination in a way that a novelist might write a book.