A Quote by Brian J. Smith

Gosh, for me, when I was 15 or 16 years old, I was just starting to understand ideas and film and things like that. And then, you go see a movie like 'The Matrix' that absolutely blows your mind. It's not just trying to entertain you, but it's also trying to explore something about human nature and ask some really deep questions.
Normally my process is to sit in a room and read a script and talk about it and ask questions and just create a dialogue. That goes all the way through shooting. All kinds of thoughts and ideas can find their way in there. As long as you're all on - We're just all trying to tell the story so my job as a director is just to find out what this film wants to be based on, it's just words on a page at some point but then it just needs to go to some level of believable storytelling. I'm discovering the film as I make it, to some degree.
There was things just like not being able to date or - I'm talking like 15, 16 - like just certain things that my friends started to do. Like, they started to get phone calls from girls or like, you know, go and hang out 10, 11 at night, kind of going to the movies. There were just certain things that - it's not that I couldn't do all of those things. It's just that every choice was really deliberate and conscious and thought out and sort of balanced against the religion in a way where I felt - I wasn't necessarily trying to convert at 12 like [my mother] was.
Running through a lot of traditional photojournalism there is an overwhelming sense of... pictures that say something, that define something. I'm not trying to define things. I'm trying to explore things. I'm trying to ask questions.
I'm trying mostly to ask questions. And not just trying to stake out a position on something, but also trying to define the stuff we agree on. I'm having battles with comment posters trying to insert a little sense of order so it's not just a long pissing match between the edges, which is what I think a lot of the blogosphere is tending to do.
You just pray that something is going to hit you like lightning. Like a movie, a book, or a photograph, a painting, something that you can riff on it and learn more about it and explore it, and just go on a journey with it. So lots of times when I choose a theme, I'll also incorporate other things that I'm doing at that period.
Film is a pretty poor medium to deliver a message. I'm not trying to do that. I'm just trying to ask a lot of questions and hopefully you can draw your own conclusions about whatever meaning might be there or what point there is; but I was conscious of wanting to create something that for a lack of a better word had a positivity and earned that.
Sometimes you just wanna go out, see your action movie, be done with it, come home. You know, and, like, you see 'The Matrix' or whatever, you see whatever film it is, and you're like, 'Oh cool,' whatever.
I really, really, really love my job, so it's not like I'm trying to quit wrestling to do movies. They just all seemed like cool things to do. I mean, I'd love to be the bad guy in an action movie because then people would get to see another side of me they don't get to see.
It really was something, to see Ram Bahadur Bomjon, apparently living without food or water. Before I went on that trip I'd asked advice on it from a very wise person who I love and revere - basically trying to see if I was somehow disrespecting Buddhism by trying to write about it, and also looking for some grounding on what stance to take ... and my friend said, "Well, why don't you just go and see?" And I hear that in my head all the time now: "Why don't you go and see?"
It wasn't that I hated being asked a bunch of questions. I had nothing against questions. I just didn't like listening to them, because some questions take forever to make sense. Sometimes waiting for a question to finish is like watching someone draw an elephant starting with the tail first. As soon as you see the tail your mind wanders all over the place and you think of a million other animals that also have tails until you don't care about the elephant because it's only one thing when you've been thinking about a million others.
Luckily I had just finished a Marvel film so I was already in a training mentality and then this movie happened and I was really just trying to focus on like as much cardio as possible because in this film I do a lot of running and a lot of running in 100 degree heat in Austinit was like a sprintit was very much like all one shot running around, sprinting. So I had to build up my cardio to be able to get to that place and also not to like, die.
'The Ugly Truth' isn't trying to change the world with strong political opinions; it's just trying to entertain you with thoughts and ideas from my crazy mind!
I'm interested in trying to explore what I think is the truth at a given time in my life, and part of the process of being honest is - in my mind - talking about the idea that you're watching a movie. You're sitting here watching a movie. And I like that. It appeals to me intellectually, and also in a way I can't even explain.
I think the original Matrix was really incredible. It was so original and it did so many innovative things with film. It was a much bigger film. Bound was just a smaller film. It was kind of like an old noir film.
I think the original Matrix was really incredible. It was so original and it did so many innovative things with film. It was a much bigger film. Bound was just a smaller film. It was kind of like an old noir film
For me, something that's been always really important to me, that's also really served me well in hindsight, is doing different things, trying to cross different genres, and dipping my toes into comedy and drama and action here and there. Fortunately, as I've been working, the industry has also changed where you're able to dip your toes into different mediums, where it's not just independent film and studio film, but now you've got TV, and you're able to do all these different things. For me, it's just a matter of continually pushing myself and challenging myself.
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