A Quote by Willem Dafoe

When I give over to somebody's vision rather than have an idea of what I need to do, it takes me to places I wouldn't have got to by myself. I'm always attracted to a strong director.
Whenever somebody says they need an angle for their story I always fear that they've got an idea and they want me to fit into it or they want me to come up with an idea myself or I'm supposed to be more revealing than I've been, and to me it just sounds like something I don't want to do.
Sport that consumed me for over two decades . . . is now gone. Now it's just me. No pressure, no expectations, no need to be fast, good, strong or to even improve. Yet I can't let go of this idea that I always need to be more than I am. And it is eating me alive.
As an actor, you're always at the service of somebody else's vision. In a play, it's more of the director's vision, and he or she's got their hands on you all the way up to opening night, and if it's a film, there are even more people.
As an actor, you've got to have faith in the director's vision, that the director has a vision for this that is greater than the critics say.
I always relish the idea of collaborating with the director on creating the sound world, the sound spectrum, and the sound environment of the film. I use every means at my disposal to create a score that is as strong and powerful to enhance the director's vision for the film.
We [Democrats] have got to be strong. When we look weak in a time where people feel insecure, we lose. when people feel uncertain, they'd rather have somebody who's strong and wrong than somebody who's weak and right.
A strong film director does leave you to your devices. A strong director allows you to be free and you trust that he's there and he will tell you if you've gone too far. A strong director allows you to be much more experimental and take greater chances than a director who isn't secure within himself.
But I'd rather help than watch. I'd rather have a heart than a mind. I'd rather expose too much than too little. I'd rather say hello to strangers than be afraid of them. I would rather know all this about myself than have more money than I need. I'd rather have something to love than a way to impress you.
I'm kind of the boss. I could fire myself if I ever got out of line, and I can hire myself too which is a good thing. It gives me a responsibility to the financial realities of the picture. I'm an extremely conscientious producer and now equally as a director and it now gives me the opportunity to look at the entire movie and allow the movie to be the creative vision of the actors, the writer and myself, because I'm in charge of it from a producer and a director point of view. It gives me freedom and it gives me a certain degree of responsibility at the same time.
It's important for me to work with a strong director because I know I can go to some really deep places, I just need direction on how to get there.
As an actor on a film, you have no control over the final product - your job is to make a director's vision come true. So, you need to have total faith in them and add your own creativity and opinions and energy, but you have to really give over responsibility, and sometimes that can feel terrifying.
Something that has always attracted me to even taking on the occupation of actor is the idea that I could be lucky enough to portray different characterizations from different places in the world, whether it's speaking another language or taking on a dialect and building a history from where they were born. I was very attracted to that concept, in becoming an actor.
I think what makes a good actor's director is somebody who understands what I'm doing and is respectful of it, but who also has a vision and is directing me toward their vision in a way that feels productive.
The idea, as a director, is to be able to bring everybody on board and to inspire and give energy to everybody and to explain specific color, specific ambience. I need to be very precise, but I think I'm a better director when I'm more a channeler than a dictator.
I believe that the director is really the soul. It is a collaborative effort, but the director is the one who needs to have that vision. It could be a great script, but it starts from there. You need to have good material, at least, but if you don't have someone with vision, it's just words.
They want more production and they want it cheaper. But no matter what happens, the creative idea will be perpetuated by somebody who comes up with a vision. I don't care if there are three CEOs - it takes one guy with an idea.
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