A director makes only one movie in his life. Then he breaks it into pieces and makes it again.
I wanted to be in a Baz Luhrmann film. It's just extraordinary. He's so amazing at what he does. He makes the most incredible films.
I have a new respect for filmmakers, that's for sure, 'cause it's not easy. If I'm allowed to, I'll be directing for the rest of my life. I love the process.
If 'Soorma' is getting me noticed, I have the director, Shaad Ali, to thank for it.
The visual architecture of 'Biutiful' is the most sophisticated of all the films I have directed.
I enjoy directing. I don't know whether it's improving or not, but it's certainly evolving in different directions.
I think directing is a huge responsibility and it's not something where you can just be like, "Yeah, sure, I'll give it a go!" I think it's something you really need to focus on, and put a lot of effort and attention into.
I'd say that directing is in my heart. And that's where my focus is, like a laser beam. That's what I've been studying for a long time, and I think that everything that I've done before has contributed to the development of my craft as a director.
Directing is a nice job. It's the best job for me. If I had to pay money to do it, I would do it... Directing is playing. Acting.
I don't say, 'Francis Ford Coppola, what a wonderful Italian-American director.' I judge him based on his film, his craft, his art. That's the way I feel I should be dealt with in this industry.
I've never had a "hankering" to direct. I can perform, but I can't write on that level. I tend to go off on tangents. Directing also requires a kind of specificity and I don't have it.
Directing was a transformative experience for me, one that I really enjoyed.
I saw the police thriller The Blue Lamp' and remember realizing the power that Dirk Bogarde as the gangster exerted over the audience simply by his expressions in the close-ups. I could see how the people around me reacted to him and realized that I wanted to have the same effect.
Half of 'Mudbound' were shots I stole in between other scenes.
[Alfred] Hitchcock was very interested in the image on the screen.As is any good cinema director. That is the language they speak. It is not literature, it is images on screen.
I like the conscious manipulation that a great director can have. When you're both complicit in the manipulation of an emotion.
I've directed a fair amount of television series - so I'm always trying to learn new things. One episode was all hand-held and I'm trying to get better at when you should do things and when you should just shut up and watch what the people are saying.
With 'Anna Karenina,' I just think it's a stunning visual tour de force for a director who is at the top of his game.
I feel like my job as a storyteller and director is to create an experience where the audience forgets they're in a cinema and can get lost in the story. Things popping out of the screen call attention to the artifice of what you're doing, so I use 3D as more of a window into a world behind the screen.
I had a whole new respect for directors.
When people think of a Hitchcock movie, it isn't just the visual, it's the sound.
One of the greatest compliments anyone could ever give a director is, 'Everybody was in the same show.' That's something I think about constantly.
The best films are because of nobody but the director.
He [Taika Watiti] worked on this screenplay for a couple of years and just getting it right and the result is there. He's made really close to a perfect film [Hunt for the Wilderpeople]... Perfect as you can be.
I love directing and that's where I'm headed. That's where my head is at.
