The kindest thing a director can do is look with open eyes at everything.
If you're writing a screenplay for a feature, you don't have any involvement with the casting process, the editing process, the set design, the costume design, or any of that stuff.
If it's stage, the two most important artists are the actor and the playwright. If it's film, THE most important person is the director. The director says where the camera goes.
Sometimes being an actor is being a song in someone else's mixtape, so I really understand why more and more actors are making films of their own.
One of the things that we've tried to do with the 'Guardians' films is to allow the women to be full characters.
If the director has clarity of thought and vision, you are bound to just go ahead and do what he wants to do. I respect that.
Every big-budget film is powered by a director's vision. I blindly follow the instructions of my director, believe in him, and deliver what he exactly wants from me.
I think Anand Rai is one of the few brilliant directors we have.
I think it's important to say typing in the computer is like the last, last phase of my writing process. That's kind of the fun part. Well, it's all somewhat fun, I suppose. But usually what happens is I think about a movie for at least a year - maybe a couple more - and I don't put anything down.
It's not about choosing a specific genre; that's not how I go about deciding what movies to make.
I wanted to do a film for a while, but I never found a script that I felt I was going to be the right person for; because if you've never made a film, you're not taught how to make a film, and you feel like you lack skills.
If the script is telling the story well, that is your inspiration, and you do not need to go somewhere else.
I've never made any film that I wouldn't go back and re-edit.
I am impatient with directors who don't know what they want, and the way you don't know what they want is because they want to do one more. "Let's do one more." So, "What for?" I guarantee you there's not going to be a change.
The only sci-fi movie that I've ever been offered that, had circumstances been different, I would have definitely done, was 'Avatar.' And I literally couldn't do it because of my schedule. But listening to James Cameron talk about 'Avatar' was so fascinating. Because he literally invented the world in his mind - and it literally existed.
It takes two years to make a good film.
Everybody thinks making films back to back is a big deal but they did it all the time in the old days.
When you make a film, everyone wants to define it.
You just find the best actors that you can. There's an inherent drama within the framework of scares and killings and all that. In 'Scream,' there is very real drama that would be in almost any drama.
You never really know as an actor; it's completely out of your control, in terms of editing, and music, and film stock, shot selection, and what takes they use.
I have a very simple philosophy when it comes to casting, and it really is casting the best person for the role.
The only reason you make a movie is not to make or set out to do a good or a bad movie, it's just to see what you learn for the next one.
I'll work with a director if I think I'm going to get into a comfortable situation, and if it's someone I respect and who respects me, even if they're not so well known. Movies are hard to make, and you have to work toward a common ethic and do your best.
As a writer, I think about films I work on in a traditional Hollywood kind of a way. I'm curious to see how it translates.
It was fantastic to be on the set again with Denzel (Washington) and Antoine (Fuqua) and then to have the situation be so different. We weren't making a sequel to Training Day. We were in the middle of the desert riding around on some horses.
