If any of you wish to know how to have your bread fall butter side up, butter it on both sides, and then it will fall butter side up.
Every movie you're going to forget that it's 3D whether it's widescreen or whatever it is, you're going to forget everything if the movie is working. If the movie doesn't work or if the movie generically doesn't work then immediately you start to pick apart whatever has contributed to that.
It is that rare film [Moonlight] that comes along once in a while that catches the zeitgeist. This movie is that. I certainly have my fingers crossed that it is. Everyone needs to see this movie.
In Mexico, you need to be a bulldog to make a movie because everything is set up for you to go back home and get depressed and not do the movie.
Any time anyone fires bullets in an action movie that don't hit the target it immediately undermines the movie.
The script is so key to making a good movie. But everything is against you when you're making a movie: the logistics of putting a crew out where you need to go, whether the light is fading; if the weather's not right, something's wrong.
So when Community came up and then the movie roles started happening I was very grateful. I am trying to be careful with the movie roles I select because if you pull the trigger too quickly, like choosing a lead role in a crappy movie then you will be put in movie jail and you will never be heard from again. If it's not a big hit you'll be forgotten pretty fast.
There are a lot of things going into making a movie. So many things can go wrong. So many people that need to show up and bring their "A" game. If one thing is out of place, the whole movie can fall apart.
The movies have been so rank the last couple of years that when I see people lining up to buy tickets I sometimes think that the movies aren't drawing an audience - they're inheriting an audience. People just want to go to a movie. They're stung repeatedly, yet their desire for a good movie - for any movie - is so strong that all over the country they keep lining up.
If you have a flop movie, so what? And if you have a hit movie, it's 'so what,' too - it's on to the next movie.
That's the only way I can control my movie. If you shoot everything, then everything is liable to end up in the movie. If you have a vision, you don't have to cover every scene.
You never have any idea where your movie's going to go when you're shooting - you're in this little bubble. Everything you care about is getting the next step right: getting the script right, finding the right actors, shooting it.
I've made some stupid decisions, so I have to be careful. I once said 'no' to a film that was a number-one hit. And 'Date Movie' had the smallest budget of any movie I'd been in, and it went to the top of the box office.
A live action movie is work, and an animated movie is you showing up in your pajamas once every three months, or in my case, just a splash of baby powder. It's not any kind of heavy lifting.
There's nothing more disheartening than seeing a movie and going oh, that doesn't work, or it didn't inspire us. Versus seeing a movie that is 'this is so awesome!'. Oftentimes, a really good movie just inspired you to go and make movies!
I'm a director because I directed a movie. And if I have any advice for people, it's, 'Go write something; go direct it. If that's what you have a desire to do, go do it. If the movie stinks, just put it on the shelf and try to do it again.'