Action Filmmaking Quotes

When I made 'Hard Boiled,' I had no idea that it would be released to an international audience. I just wanted to make a film to team up my two favorite actors, Tony Leung and Chow Yun-Fat.

If an actor is going to be an action hero, do it in a Robert Rodriguez movie, because that guy is going to make you look like a million bucks.

Once you got Hollywood doing these kinds of movies and having all the, how you say, the tools to do it, and also to keep on finding new ways of doing it becomes - Hollywood can be avant garde on what concerns action.

When I set out to make 'Bourne Identity,' my main goal for the franchise was to create something where it feels like you're in the action. You're not just passively watching it from far away. That's something that I have constantly aspired to do - even in 'Swingers,' to feel like you're Jon Favreau; you're not just watching him.

You really get to direct the movie three times when it comes to the action sequences and the set pieces.

There are a lot of big action movies that we've worked on where the attitude has been, 'Let's just get through this scene.' Then you get those jumpy, what-were-they-thinking action sequences.

As far as I know, there is only one other director who was a stuntman - guy named Chuck Bail who directed 'Gumball Rally.' Doing stunts isn't exactly a common path to directing.

I only make storyboards for action scenes. Once you make a storyboard, you don't film; it can be a stiff move.

Frankly, you cannot match the action in a Bond or a Bourne film. Forget budgets, it needs an expertise which I probably lacked.

I enjoy doing action a lot more because my films have a sense of violence. That's because I have a broad structure, and if I hit someone, it looks believable. Maybe my contemporaries are meeker-looking in comparison.

Daniel Craig is brilliant as Bond: there is no question about that. But it's a different Bond. It's the cross pollination of 'The Bourne Identity' and 'James Bond;' that kind of style of filmmaking.

The action pictures I've been typically involved with, when somebody gets punched, you really feel the punching, and when somebody gets shot, you really feel the shot.

Definitely it is difficult to maintain the Hollywood stylized action that we had in 'Kick.'

Justin Lin has just been exceptional with what he does with that vehicular action.

It takes years of building that experience as a filmmaker, as well as physically. You have to have a high level understanding of martial arts.

Action film is really easy to do, you just get in a car and smash through things and it's called action. The real key is what happens between the action when it's quiet. Loud is easy. Quiet, real hard.

We did a lot of fight scenes in 'Hitman: Agent 47,' so you have to learn repetitious movements to music; otherwise, it's amazingly boring. Michael Jackson was our savior.

When in a movie like 'Housefull' you have to create comedy out of falling on a glass table or jumping from huge heights, it's all action, but packaged as comedy. Here you don't just have to perform a heavy-duty action sequence, but you have to make it look funny and that is really difficult. But it's fun... and I really enjoy it.

There ain't a director in town who knows action better than I do. That's not just braggadocio on my part. I've been in the business for 25 years, and I ought to know it by now.

John Woo is a very nice and kind person; he gives almost no direction at all, trusting me to come up with the character. But when I think of him, I think of explosions!

Being on a Michael Bay set is... well, it's the only set I've ever been on. But I would imagine there's no set that's run quite like it. It's big, it's loud, it's powerful, it's intense, it's dirty, it's hot, it's sweaty - and it's really exciting. There's never a dull moment; there's never a quiet moment.

These stunt guys are good at what they do and they're professional. A smart actor will step back and say, "I'm going to let the professionals do this." Hats off to those guys, man. When you see the credits scroll, look at all those stunt guys and remember all those names 'cause they earned their money on this.

Any time you do action and horror, you've always got to try to find a way to make it fresh for the audience, but also for yourself, and there are so many different ways to freak people out and create tension.

The art of stunt-making is not about falling down; it's about getting the shot. Creating stunts is creating heroes.

The vehicle-stunt world is so specialized. But when you spend so long in it as a stunt coordinator, you're exposed to all the disciplines, so it's always fun to combine the two ideas - a car chase and a fight scene - and make something more dynamic.