A Quote by Robert De Niro

I always wanted to direct. Directing is a lot more of a commitment though, a lot more time. I like directors who do very few takes, they know what they want. — © Robert De Niro
I always wanted to direct. Directing is a lot more of a commitment though, a lot more time. I like directors who do very few takes, they know what they want.
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.'
I've always said that with a lot of the horror franchises that I've started, it's like directing a pilot. I come in, I direct the first movie and all these directors come in and direct all the sequels after me and hey have to kind of retain the look, the tone, and the characters.
For many years I thought, "Well, I need to know a lot more to direct." But I looked around and watched all the people I know directing and thought, "No. I just need to know what I want it to be." Then there will be a lot of people to help me get it to there, especially Bobby Bukowski, he's a brilliant cinematographer.
I did a good bit of episodic television directing, but directing a movie is so much more complicated. And there's so much more responsibility because the medium is very much a director's medium. Television is much more of a producer's writer's medium so a lot of the time when you're directing a television show they have a color palette on set or a visual style and dynamic that's already been predetermined and you just kind of have to follow the rules.
Directing remains very psychological, and it takes a lot of time and reflection. When you're an actor, it takes less time, and you can express yourself physically.
but it wasn't just about my feelings. The more I got to know you, the more I was certain that you'd do whatever it took to provide for your family. That was important to me. You have to understand that back then, a lot of people our age wanted to change the world. Even though it's a noble idea, I knew I wanted something more traditional. I wanted a family like my parents had, and I wanted to concentrate on my little corner of the world. I wanted someone who wanted to marry a wife and a mother, and someone who would respect my choice.
I like the direct contact. I want a lot of people that only know me through the mass media to learn more about what I'm doing, and to know that I'm an independent filmmaker and I'm not part of the Hollywood system. I'm coming from where they started. I'm not coming from a family with a lot of money.
Obviously, culturally, England's style of play is a lot more direct and physical. In Spain, they're a lot more patient, and they have the ball a lot more.
For a lot of my childhood, I didn't want to direct movies because I didn't really know what directing was.
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.
I think more than comedy, probably more than straight drama, I like horror. And horror I think I'm particularly good at. It's a mistake a lot of directors make, especially young directors. They always want to make the kind of movies that they most admire and aren't necessarily sensitive to what they have the best skill set for.
It's not easy to know who you are and it's very painful and takes a lot of time and that is why a lot of people don't want to put in the effort.
Not that that's my goal, but when you're very wealthy and very famous, you can have a lot more decisions in what you do. You have a lot more opportunity. You can maybe even not work for a few years. It puts you in a great position to make some decisions. You're not always taking every job that comes and that kind of thing.
If I have things my way, over the next few years, I'm going to be doing a lot more directing and a lot less acting. That will be fun for a while.
Wrestling in general is a lot more Americanized, to use that term loosely. Back when I started, there were still a few people practicing that old-school British style. At the time, I didn't want to do that. I wanted to wrestle like AJ Styles; I wanted to do flips and that sort of stuff, but I never really got it.
I do not know if it is true that all actors want to direct and all directors want to act, but in 1972 I tried directing and decided I had better stick to acting.
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