director's approach Quotes

[The way Stanley Kubrick] tells a story is antithetical to the way we are accustomed to receiving stories.

It was easy and fun [filming in Hail, Caesar!], and I think it's easy to be intimidated by the Coen brothers, because they're quiet. They don't heap praise, especially upon themselves. It's not like they're walking around thinking they're the greatest thing on Earth.

I think every director's different. Every director's got his own style. I mean, when I directed, I basically just screamed for eight hours a day, twelve hours a day.

There are two kinds of filmmaking: Hitchcock's (the film is complete in the director's mind) and Coppola's (which thrives on process). For Hitchcock, any variation from the complete internal idea is seen as a defect. The perfection already exists. Coppola's approach is to harvest the random elements that the process throws up, things that were not in his mind when he began.

I don't really think I have the personality. I am not very external. I don't want to dance on the table and do impressions. So I think that the way I approach it is really loving story. That's my first love - the words. The words and the story and how to create images. I guess I come at that as a director. I think that's much more in my personality to be a director, so that's kind of informed my acting.

John Huston was the kind of director that totally left you alone. Not every actor always does it right, every time, but most of the time he was re-directing someone. He was making tight adjustments, and not even in terms of interpretation because he knew that by the time that the character had been filmed... well, he got it right when he cast you.

Every director is different and they all have different styles. I've worked with directors who were very specific and they gave a lot of direction. The one thing about Michael [Haneke]that I think is interesting is that he really has a reason for everything he's asking you. If you challenge it, he is open for discussion but he has a clear idea of what he wants with reasons why.

Every director works differently but one thing's important: they must have a vision. If they don't have a vision I don't care how they work.

I like a director who is very observant and is watching what I'm doing and noticing what I'm doing but is giving me time to figure it out. They don't jump right in and give you a note before you've had time to really search on your own with how to do a scene. I like a director that encourages me to be playful.

As a director, I do very few takes, because I feel like you hire the right actor and they'll do the job right. And the directors that I've worked with and had the best luck with - Jason and [ Steven] Soderbergh and the Coen brothers - all have been that kind of director.

Most of the films I myself like don't do very well. Every director, he has a choice, whether to go for subtlety and try to articulate every minute detail, or to go for the broad strokes and hope that the people will fill in between the lines. I tend to go for the broader strokes.

Before I start directing a show, I try to spend a few weeks hanging around the set, getting to know the crew and talking to the actors about how they like to work. Who is fussy? Who is left-handed? Who wants to go home early, and who is the perfectionist?

I have my set rigged with the biggest sound system possible and have a mini jack for my iPod attached to my director's chair. I find playing music is a very direct way to communicate with actors and the crew, especially those crew members who are on the periphery of the set. I like dancing on set too, it's a good way to release tension.

[on his use of tracking shots throughout his 50-year career] There's always a certain amount of camera improvisation.

The best working experiences I've had are with directors who want to create with you while you're on set. I prefer a much freer environment. That's why I'm always trying to mess things up, just to know that I can!

Not write, maybe develop. Direct, sure. As an actor, you work on so many films, you sort of start to see who directs well and who doesn't.

I like a director that encourages me to be playful. I don't really like being restricted or controlled by a director.

So, most of it was done over the phone. But one of the first things I did as a director, because it's one of the first things you should do, even though most don't, is to ask good actors who they think is right for the part. They know better than anybody. But without missing a beat Maggie said Pauline Collins. I didn't know Pauline because I hadn't seen Shirley Valentine, but then I saw this thing that she did with Woody Allen [You Will Meet A Tall Dark Stranger], in which she was wonderful as a psychic, and I said to her on the phone: "The dialogue seemed improvised."

My process differs... my process for a Richard Linklater film is very different than a process for Training Day.

I don't go back and look at the monitor between every take; I wait until I feel like we finally got it right: "Let me stop and look at that last one on the monitor."

Too many people believe in that [Alfred] Hitchcock thing that he only shot exactly the shots he needed for the dialogue he needed and I think that's bullshit, even if that was true for that singular filmmaker.

The way Woody Allen directs, there isn't a lot of direction. He kind of might give a few gentle suggestions, but he really says right from the first day, "Just make it sound natural, and if you don't like something, put it in your own words." And [Woody Allen] gives you a lot of freedom and just very polite.

I think that for a lot of actors - especially American actors - to get line readings and to be told and have your director literally act out the part for you is sort of discouraging in a way. It's a very Eastern European thing to do - a lot of directors that I worked with in Russia did that as well. And, I never took that as an insult, as many actors tend to do. To me, I think it's just offering a certain energy - offering their flavor - and, instead of trying to sort of decode and communicate it to you, they just show you their flavor of what it should be.

I've always believed in making films that you make the little decisions with your head, but you make the big decisions with your heart.

He [Oliver Stone] is great. I really like working with directors who know what they want and aren't afraid to tell you, "Do it like this. Don't do it like that."