Hayao Miyazaki Quotes

I wanted to make a film as an artist, and it's going to have to find an audience, you know. I don't know how big the audience will be.

You hear it said time and time again by successful directors: You have to make a movie for yourself. Don't make it for anyone else. My style of filmmaking happens to be give the audience what they know they don't want, but they want. Ultimately I have to write and direct in a way that let's just say, you don't want to regret making a choice.

All we try and do is make the best films we can. If you do that then hopefully the audiences will come, and they have. Everything else is gravy.

The independent-minded movies - it's always an uphill battle to get them made and seen. You do what you can, and go out there after and try to tell people about it, but at the end of the day, that's all you can do.

It's dangerous to think too much about how a film will be received. Filmmaking is not a popularity contest. Some would disagree.

When you're working on a movie you always hope that people will go for it and enjoy what you're doing.

I don't make movies because I think audiences will want to go see them.

You can't plan for people to like your movies. I knew that people were not going to run in droves to the theater for the 'In the Valley of Elah.' I knew they might not want to see it, but I still had to the movie; I felt very strongly about it. Wanting to keep telling a good story is what you want to do, a compelling story.

I think that if you go about making movies to win Oscars, you're really going about it the wrong way.

The day I make movies that Rupert Murdoch likes and admires is the day I'll throw in the towel, because he's got no taste.

I've learned that you never have to think about how to make money. You need only to focus on what you think is going to be a good movie or what's a movie I'd like to watch as the audience.

If my films don't do well, nobody is going to give me films.

Making commercial cinema is very tough.

I am glad that we can make bold films, different films within the commercial market and still do well.

I would never make a film because I think it's going to be a box-office success.

There is certainly no formula of making a successful film, but there are means to make a sensible film.

If I listen to 120 stories, I'd love 10 of them, seven would go on floors, four would get completed, three films will have the first copy ready, and one will release in theaters. This is how it has been for me.

My last film as director, the National Award winning 'Zakhm,' barely managed to break even. So why should I listen to so-called sensibilities of a handful of critics?

When you make a film you make a film. You don't think about how it will be marketed.

I've done a lot of movies, and you really never know. You do a movie and you think that it's great, and then you see it and it doesn't work.

I love making movies, I love trying to make them as good as I can, but I feel like sometimes the marketing and publicity around the movie, becomes the most important part of it.

I'm not in a contest. I make movies. I'm not a racehorse.

The main thing is to do each project the way you want, and if they find an audience, that's terrific. And if they don't, there's nothing you can do anyway, so don't let it concern you that much. An awful lot of good movies have done badly and an awful lot of bad movies have done very well. There are no real rhymes or reasons for it. Sometimes the stars don't always align right. But if you've done the best you can, you feel pretty good about it.

You have to remain strong. That's the kind of filmmaker I want to encourage. Orson Welles was the one who said, you know, you can learn anything you need to know about filmmaking- that's camera, sound, celluloid, video at this point- in four hours. It has nothing to do with anything. It has nothing to do with it... It has to do with what you want to say. If you feel you have something to say, you'll find that way to get it said, on film, and not let anyone or anything chip away at that or tarnish it, because it's something special and precious.

You can always make a good film but for it to be successful, you need God's blessing.