A Quote by Mike Nichols
As a director, my job is, and always has been, divided into a number of things: dealing with the crew, the money and the studio, and the marketing and publicity. These are all different jobs that have to be learned and done as well as possible. The celebrity part rarely touches a director.
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If you didn't get it right and then you have to release a director's cut to undo what the studio made you release, I don't know, either it's some marketing thing for them to get more money or the director didn't do his job.
In Hong Kong, in our generation that started out in the 1970s, being a director wasn't a big deal. We didn't even have director's chairs. We weren't particularly well paid. The social standing of a film director wasn't that high. It was a sort of a plebeian job, a second or third grade one. And the studio heads are always practical, there's never any fawning because someone is a director. There's very little snobbery about one's position as a director. The only ones people treated differently were those that were also stars; or the directors who also owned their companies.
It takes a number of different skill sets, I think, to try and be a good producer. You have to be very creative, but you also have to be incredibly financially minded. I jokingly say the job is kind of part cheerleader and part dictator. It is both of those things, because you have to make sure that people are doing what they need to be doing, but creatively you really need to be helping each person in every job across the crew. Cheering them on, keeping them inspired into doing their best work, and you have the director's vision in the forefront.
I always enjoy working with an international crew and director. But on the set of a Hollywood action film - now that's a whole other world. The sheer grand scale of the way things are done over there makes me envious; it's just so different from the way things are done in Japan.
When I'm choosing projects to be a part of it's always a combination of so many different things. The primary thing is the director. But a very important element is, is it different enough from anything else I've ever done, or what I've last done.
If we do change anything, we always talk about it beforehand. It's not really fair to throw things at the director on the day, unless it's a small note such as re-phrasing something. But if it's large, we always talk to the director. But we seldom do that out of respect for the writers because, for the most part, they do such a great job.
Every part I've done has been for one reason or another-money, or the part, or the director, or the location. I'd like to get one thing that's all of those combined.
Very rarely have I worked with a director where we've been at odds. And by the time you've actually talked to somebody and you have the job, there's something that they see in you that they want you to bring to the character. And the best director says very little to you, acting-wise. They usually just say, "Okay, here's the shot." It's their job to do all that stuff, and your job's to do the acting. So it's very rare that somebody will say, "Oh, no. I conceived this very differently".
Of all the wonderful things government says, that's always been just about my favorite. As opposed to if you get to keep the money. Because what you'll do is go out and bury it in your yard, anything to prevent that money from creating jobs. They never stop saying it.We will say, "This is expected to create x number of jobs." On the other hand, we never say that the money we removed from another part of the economy will kill some jobs.
I pick different projects for different reasons. Usually, it's a combination of things. I admire the director, and I am interested in working with the director. Or, it's the cast. I can be moved by the story. The ideal situation is you love the director and you love the cast.
Even though I studied in New York and I know the American system, I come from France where I learned that with movies in France where the director is king. There's no such thing as a studio edit. It's the director's cut, period.
I've always laughed at the term "female director" or even "black director." A director's a director.
I was focused on The Hunger Games movie with my director, with the studio, and with the cast and crew. We all just focused on making the best possible movie we could, and earning the right to do more.
One of the jobs of a director is to ask questions. One of the jobs of the director is to stand in for the audience until they get there.
The good part of working in TV is it's like being a studio director in old Hollywood and approaching different genres. It's a chance to try out different styles.
What's interesting as a director, and even studio executives don't understand this, is that if you're directing a $200 million movie with six million people, it's the same as directing a $25,000 movie with three people. The director's job is, "You stand there and do that," or "This is the shot I want." The logistics change, but the job remains the same. And I enjoy the job.
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