A Quote by Oliver Stone

[When making movies I] set out to be authentic to [myself] and to put it down the way [I] feel it and know it and interpret it. And then others sometimes key into it and get it.
I still feel like I don't know what I'm doing. Like, I'm unsure of what my life will be like. I mean, I have such an obsession with making movies that I probably will always do that. But sometimes my life can feel so suffocating, and then it can feel so massive, like I don't have a handle on it at all, and I don't know where it's going or what I'm going to do. Right now, I'm known for making movies. And I wonder if that's it. I don't know. It doesn't feel like it to me.
There was a point where I was making four movies a year. I was always on a set. I had no stories to tell. I was feeling empty. My life was just luggage and hotels and from set to set, from character to character. And one day, I said, 'And where is mine?' You know? And the moment I started to feel that fear, I stopped and I slowed down.
I've been making movies for a long time. The Japanese way of making movies has become second nature to me. To get away from that, I really try to surround myself with younger staff and approach making movies not like a veteran of the industry but always as a beginner and a rookie.
It's really hard for me to sometimes put myself out there, like 'Hey, how do you feel about making music together?' because maybe I'm afraid of rejection or I don't want to put anybody out. It's the Southerner in me, like, 'I don't mean to bother you but do you mind making a song?'
Sometimes when we get our ass kicked and we're down, sometimes we stay down, and sometimes we get depressed and sometimes we don't know how to handle it, and sometimes we don't know what's going on, and sometimes we feel like it's not worth going on.
To be a modern person in 2012, you are often required to have some electronics in your life. And I do. I try to put that phone down, put the computer away, and get out there and hike in the woods; feel it in my feet, feel it in my hands; get out in the garden and feel the soil under my fingers, my fingertips and my fingernails. I try to be involved in nature in a very tactile way. I think that's important.
When I'm editing my work, I'm looking for everything to fit, to feel seamless, for every detail or line of dialogue or scene to feel necessary and organic. I approach the writing of others in much the same way while always working to preserve the writer's voice. To allow myself to be vulnerable on the page, I tell myself no one is going to read my work. There's no way I could put myself out there otherwise.
Movies cost so much that studios really try to impose their personality over yours. A lot of times, you can get swallowed up in that and end up making movies that are indistinguishable from anybody else's. One of the things I've always tried to do is to inject myself as much as possible into the movie, so I feel like it's mine. But that also comes from what you choose to do and what you choose not to do. There are certain projects I could have said yes to, and I know exactly how they would have turned out: exactly the way they turned out when someone else did them.
I do like to work. Some jobs are better than others. That's the thing: You really don't know. I've enjoyed making movies for lots of different reasons. Sometimes, it was the other people. Sometimes, it was the fact that I was really good in it. Sometimes, it was the location. Sometimes, it was the paycheck.
So much of writing is discovery. Sometimes I feel like a rat in a maze, trying to discover the way out. My little heart is beating, and I'm racing down a path thinking, this is the route, it will get me there, as I turn this way and then that.
There are a bunch of different movies I feel that way about. However, there is a debate because as you may know after MST3K ended there have been things like Cinematic Titanic that are the children and the grandchildren of this way of dissecting movies and making fun of them and in a way celebrating the absurdity of those movies as well. There are certain movies that sort of fit into the MST3K paradigm which is hidden gems, these weird horror/sci-fi/fantasy movies.
No one is banging my door down to be a superhero. I don't know how good I would be. I have low bone density, so I don't know if anyone really wants to put me in a cape and chuck me out a window. But a lot of my friends, who are great actors and who come from film, are doing TV because that's where the opportunities are. For us, it does feel like it's similar to making the movies that we used to make.
You have to lay down in the center of the action lay down and wait until it charges then you must get up face it get it before it gets you the whole process is more shy than vulnerable so lay down and wait sometimes it's ten minutes sometimes it's years sometimes it never arrives but you can't rush it push it there's no way to cheat or get a jump on it you have to lay down lay down and wait like an animal .
Abandoning who people think you are and becoming who you really are is a simple concept, but sometimes it is very hard to do. It isn't easy to give up others' ideas of who you are. Yet the key to success is to discover your uniqueness and to exploit it. Your authentic persona, either personal or corporate, is the key to your prosperity.
The majority of my job is being an open channel, and if I'm not being very authentic with who I am in myself, then it doesn't feel like I can dig down deep and get to really vulnerable stuff, or stuff I have never felt before.
I think with every character I get, there's an approach that's appropriate. I feel like my own job is to interpret what there is in the film and show that through me, sort of really channel myself through the role. If I feel I need to get into it to the point where I don't leave it, then I will.
This site uses cookies to ensure you get the best experience. More info...
Got it!