filmmaker collaboration Quotes

I'm not one of those actors where filmmakers that I admire ask me to be in their movies. I meet them at parties and they're nice to me, but they never ask me to work with them.

I don't find myself lobbying for projects. Filmmakers almost always come to me.

I don't choose parts. I choose filmmakers. I'm done trying to make a statement with a character. What happens is, I craft a performance from the beginning to the end of the character. Then I release it to the director, and he interprets what I gave him.

If you want a film and they don't want you, sometimes you have to go fight for it. Sometimes that ends up just being a meeting really, just sitting down with them and just saying here is my vision for it and here is why I really love it. But for the most part, I think filmmakers gravitate towards people that are excited - as excited as they are about the film and as passionate about it. So sometimes going after it isn't so much a function of auditioning as it is just sitting down with the filmmaker.

It's probably unprecedented for a filmmaker simply to take the writers' script and treat it as the instructions on the package. What really happens is you pretty much suppress your own instincts - and your own views on the matter - and write things the way filmmakers would like to have them, though the filmmakers often don't know what they want. They can only find out by reading what you do.

The whole process of working with Steven [Sebring] and being filmed by him helped me psychologically to get my feet back on the ground.

I talked with [ Blair Macon] a lot. I always like to come up with it - sometimes the filmmaker is not into it at all.

I have an idea about building almost like a studio for some of the best Tropfest filmmakers, so they can come together and support and be given space and resources they need to tell great stories year around, so it's not just about the festivals. You know, the sky's the limit with this thing, and I'm still making it up as I go along.

I like meeting directors. It can be helpful because sometimes when you meet filmmakers you find out if you like them and if they like you, and that is important in terms of considering a role. Choosing a role is all about whether I relate to the role and the story really. That's the criteria.

Look, I'm going to take full advantage of this situation just because I love working with great filmmakers. But I've been around for a while, and I'm not going to play into the hype that I'm some great, you know, discovery.

I have a gut reaction to stuff that I read. Either it's a filmmaker that I really want to work with, or it's a story that I really want to be a part of and help serve, or there's a character that I feel I can bring something unique to. That's really what it's about. I would go crazy, if I just relied on the same tricks and did the same thing, all the time. It was just be no fun, at all. I really do need to try something different, every time out, and do something that scares me, a little bit.

TV [series] is a six-year decision. It's not four or five weeks. If a filmmaker and I don't get along, it's four weeks of your life, so whatever.

We had a great producing staff and great filmmakers, but for me, my mission , as a producer, was to make sure that the creators were happy with the film Death Note and that their voices were heard. I felt, if the creators were proud and happy with the film, then in turn, the fans would be proud and happy with the film because the creators know the fan base, inside and out.

If you look at anybody who's had along career, if you look at the choices they've made - even if the movies haven't worked - they've always worked with great filmmakers.

You have to really be able to trust the director. It's about the filmmaker and whether or not I'm going to be able to have a relationship with them and want to follow them down that road, wherever it may lead.

When we bring the filmmaker, we bring somebody to help us elevate the material with those things, to help us do something different with all of those resources at their disposal.