Project Appeal Quotes

I've just always loved really good projects. The things that draw me into a new project have very little to do with genre and have more to do with the characters I'll be playing, the people I'll get to work with and things like that.

For me it came from the material. It was so well written and brought the opportunity to work with great actors. And of course the opportunity to 'mince about' was an added element that I wanted to take advantage of!

Elia Kazan. He wrote my favorite book about filmmaking, 'Elia Kazan: On Directing.' There is a thing in the book that I do every time, it's part of my production structure. He said when you're hiring an actor, ask them what draws them to the project, and don't lead them to the answer.

I don't have a philosophy for choosing roles. Sometimes, it's just, 'This might be interesting; that might be fun to do.' There might be interesting actors or directors in the project, even if the part is not important. And then sometimes, you need the money.

Really, I am entirely material driven. If a project appeals to me, I will try to find the right writer and director. And that may be someone I've worked with before, or it may not. It may be a woman, or it may not.

Projects don't need to be special for me to sign up, but I do need them to have something that speaks to me in some way.

When script is written well, then you start to make decisions of, "Well, do I want to be away from home for that long? Do I like the people involved?" When it's written well, a lot of those things go away and you can't not do it.

I don't really have a preferred genre. It's more up to the individual project itself and if I feel compelled by it.

I'm not the kind of actor that gets crazy with [directors'] names, what draws me toward a project is the material itself.

Anurag Kashyap is someone whose projects I can take without even hearing the story.

What appeals to me in a project is, I'll read the script, and I'll be like, 'Is this something that's new and something I haven't experienced before?' And if so, 'Am I gonna be able to handle it? Am I gonna be up to this challenge?' That's what I try to do.

It was mainly to do with Helen Hunt, to be honest. That's what drew my attention to it. I was interested in the fact that she was going to be directing. I'd never met her but she projects a degree of intelligence and it was convincing t me that she'd be able to handle this sort of material very well.