A Quote by Nicolas Roeg

I think the big studios shaped and formed the artists that they put under contract. — © Nicolas Roeg
I think the big studios shaped and formed the artists that they put under contract.
In my day, the only people who achieved real independence were my father, Mary Pickford and Charles Chaplin, who, with D. W. Griffith, formed United Artists. Other than that, everybody belonged to the big studios. They had no say in their own careers.
My grandmother was an actress too. In the thirties and forties she was under contract with Universal Studios. Crazy credits, lots of them. My dad was also under contract with Universal Studios. And my first film was shot on the same stage they both worked on at Universal.
Spiritual formation is for everyone. Just as there is an 'outer you' that is being formed and shaped all the time, like it or not, by accident or on purpose, so there is an 'inner you.' You have a spirit. And it's constantly being shaped and tugged at: by what you hear and watch and say and read and think and experience.
In general, I think we're more or less shaped and formed by our late 20s. Things come along during that time that make us cynical. By the time you're in your 30s, it's hard to unpick those mindsets that have formed. It takes years of therapy to undo them.
In the contract days, the big studios groomed us to play particular roles and we would stay with the image they gave us and insisted on.
I played so many years without having a big contract, to have the big contract and not win and not have the appreciation, it hurt.
I visit studios. Just to get the feel, the smell, and see what other people are doing. Not only listening to the radio, but going to studios, greeting musicians and artists, just getting a vibe.
All the interesting films are now being made by their subsidiaries for very low budgets. But the studios are not making money. They're making these big, very expensive pictures that take a lot of money but don't really pay for their costs. So they're having a very difficult time. I can see the system breaking down. I think the American studios are a reflection or a metaphor for American industry altogether, which is failing in the world. Its economic domination is being broken down and I think the same thing is happening to the studios.
Little Wooster, Ohio and gargantuan Dallas, Texas formed the municipal cocktail of my life up till age 18. That drab, weird little town and the glitzy big one shaped me for sure.
As a kid, I just was a contract player at MGM Studios. They put me into goodness knows how many different roles.Some of them were wonderful and some of them were very just distasteful and awful because I was playing out of my age range and I was thoroughly uncomfortable, let's put it that way. So it took me many years to find my acting feet.
I didn't have a big-time contract out of college like most athletes. In fact I had no contract at all.
I think my favorite artists are honest artists, and as a songwriter, that's what you have to do. You have to be willing to put yourself out there in a really vulnerable way.
In my home office, I built a custom sit-stand desk to which I connected a big, kidney shaped glass top which I got for cheap at Ikea. Kidney-shaped desk tops are, I think, the most efficient of all possible desk shapes.
There were the days when women were under contract, and they were thought of as a commodity, so they hired the best writers and a lot of them were women at the time. This was in the thirties and forties, to make product for the people who were under contract, who were their assets to the studios. But that doesn't exist anymore - and as a result, the people who are in the industry write products that interest them.
I personally adore origin stories - they're so intriguing, learning what shaped and formed a character.
Working with David Cronenberg or Darren Aronofsky or even Steven Soderbergh isn't really like a typical Hollywood movie. These are true artists, and have a certain amount of freedom when they work, and they're more like independent filmmakers making their way through big studios.
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