Director Authority Quotes

I've never been difficult to anybody or with anybody on a picture. Especially when you're in that nice status of hierarchy of actors and actresses who get to approve directors. Because once you make that choice, it's my belief that the director's boss.

When a show's already established, and a director comes to set, it can be quite the intimidating experience.

I've worked with actors who tell everyone what to do in the scene - that makes me go pretty atomic.

Alexander Payne is one of those directors who is completely in charge and knows exactly what he wants, which is really fun. It's fun when a director is very specific. He knows totally the tone that he's going for. It makes it easier than if everyone's just guessing and trying to figure it out.

As a director myself, you want to have colleagues and collaborators that respect your authority as the director. I'm very comfortable with that, and I've done a lot of work in second unit.

I believe the director is the one that sets the mood and if you have this hysterical director it's a domino effect. I would work for him forever, for nothing. Don't tell my agent that.

No, United Artists was a very extraordinary organization, because once they had agreed on the director, they believed in letting him have his way. They trusted me, and that doesn't often happen.

Generally speaking, actors are allowed NO input. Actors are dumb.

In Korea, the director has the final word. If the director makes a decision, that decision is final. In Hollywood, every decision needs to go through the producer, the studio, and sometimes even the main actor. There is a certain procedure that needs to be followed.

The 9/11 commission recommended the appointment of a national intelligence director with budgetary authority to better coordinate the work of the intelligence community and resolve differences.

I think the grandfather of the set is the director. He needs to have authority, to do what people want. A warm grandfather; he needs to know his job, to be open.

Unless you're the director on the movie, or putting up the money for the movie, you really don't have a lot of control.

You can only have one voice on set, and that has to be the director.

I am very clear that when I work with a director what he or she says is the last word.

Realistically, it's the great truism that screenwriters are fungible, that at the end of the day a studio is not going to want to fire a movie star. And they're really not going to want to fire a star director because the director has the hand on the tiller of a ship.

The truth is, it's a totalitarian dictatorship when you're making films. You are the boss. You can listen to other people, and it can be a benevolent dictatorship, but it's a dictatorship nonetheless. A lot of directors go past their first experience, that's what they've come away with.

I come from theater, so I'm used to the hierarchy of an actor is just on the ladder, and above that is a director, and above that is a producer, and above that is a writer. But on a television show or film, the whole call sheet thing and being No. 1 on a call sheet, people look to you and almost expect you to exercise this power for good or bad.

The respect for a musical score must come from the director... If the director has no power and has to surrender to budgetary constraints, this is where we have the problem.

I think ultimately audience members like to see someone controlling the quality of a film. A lot of films you see are made by committees and studios and producers.

I've found that the more experts you have on a movie, the less control the director has.

When you're a screenwriter working on a film, you're not really even welcome on set, even if you know... When I wrote 'Elizabeth' and Shekhar Kapur was a friend of mine, but I wasn't really welcome on set, because the director is God and it's a very difficult position for a screenwriter who's put so much passion into that, into the writing.