A Quote by Christopher McQuarrie

I honestly never wanted to direct. It was only when I started to work on 'Alexander the Great' that I realized I had to direct. I saw something so specifically in my mind, I could not leave it to someone else.
I've never been a puppeteer, I conceive and I write and I design and I direct. And not just puppets. I direct actors, I direct dancers, I direct singers, I direct films. I also direct puppeteers. I'm really a theatre maker, but there's not a word for that.
When I work, I'm the actor. I'm going to do my job. I'm not going to direct the movie. If I wanted to direct it, I would direct it. I wanted J.J. Abrams to direct Mission: Impossible. I work with people that I respect. I expect them to do their jobs, and I will do mine. And I am there as a producer to help in any way, but no one makes a movie by themselves. It's a collaboration.
I like writing for other people. I love it. It's great because you write it and then you hand it off to someone else. But in terms of directing, anything I direct will be something I've written or re-written. I'm in no crazy rush to direct.
My partner Dan Ireland wants me to direct, and I read a lot of scripts - some good enough that I could see myself. But then it's like, so what? Who cares? Let someone else direct it.
I wish in my own mind I were more definite - that I was absolutely convinced I'd never direct someone else's script, but I keep reading scripts, because I might find something.
I've gotten to a point where I wouldn't direct someone else's material. It would only be something totally original.
I never had a burning desire to direct. But Burt and I, on many pictures together, used to watch other directors and we realized that he or I could do a lot better.
It's not so much that I want to direct but that I have to. When I write something it terrifies me that if I give it to someone else and it doesn't turn out as it could have done, I'd feel as if I'd orphaned my baby.
When I started writing the script I thought that maybe someone else would direct it, but then I started to fall for it so much that I left the other project and I put all my time on The German Doctor.
Failure meant a stripping away of the inessential. I stopped pretending to myself that I was anything other than what I was, and began to direct all my energy to finishing the only work that mattered to me. Had I really succeeded at anything else, I might never have found the determination to succeed in the one area where I truly belonged. I was set free, because my greatest fear had been realized, and I was still alive, and I still had a daughter whom I adored, and I had an old typewriter, and a big idea. And so rock bottom became a solid foundation on which I rebuilt my life.
I did it [photojournalism] as something that was really rewarding to do, given the opportunity to express myself about something I cared about, and also to learn a lot by watching filmmakers I admired. In a sense, it was my film school. After doing it for a few years, I decided that the time had come to get it together and do some work of my own. So I stopped doing that and wrote some screenplays on speculation, because even though I wanted to direct, to direct you need a lot of money.
Because if a woman can only direct women, and men can only direct men, and Black directors can only direct Black actors, then we are missing out on opening up voices to different perspectives.
Yeah, well I can't see a situation where I wouldn't at least re-write as a director something I was going to direct. At the moment, I wouldn't direct anything that I hadn't written. I can now say, as everybody else says, that it all depends on the script.
I've talked to a lot of directors who direct solo like most directors. And they're always like, 'Oh, man I wish I had somebody I could direct with because it's a lot of work.'
When I write something, I want the best director to direct it. And that's not going to be me. So when David Fincher comes along and wants to direct 'The Social Network,' when Bennett Miller comes along and wants to direct 'Moneyball,' or when Danny Boyle wants to direct 'Jobs'? Hallelujah. I want them directing it.
I was always telling myself I could handle a more complex role, I could handle something bigger and more interesting than the work I was doing. But I wasn't demanding that of myself. At a certain point, I realized it was never going to come my way unless I started taking more control of it. That's what I realized I had to do.
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