Top 1200 Directing Actors Quotes & Sayings - Page 2

You've got to remember that improvisers are writers and actors and directors all simultaneously. That's what's happening in real time because you're writing on your feet, and you are acting out the words and you are directing what the staging is. You're deciding what staging is.

I find directing so incredibly rewarding and challenging and humbling and exciting and engaging. Scenes become challenging. Actors bring out the best of you. Circumstances demand you dig deep.

Somehow I got to be one of five or six actors that the directors would use as guinea pigs at this directing colloquium, where people pay to listen to and watch the directors direct.

I always say, 'I love producing, but directing is my passion,' and for a while, I had to produce to support my directing habit.

I prefer directing to acting. There is huge freedom that comes from being behind the camera. It brings a lot of responsibilities as well, but is intensely rewarding. Particularly the chance to help draw out the best in young actors.

I started off as a director, so when I see other actors directing, it gives me hope that maybe they'll put me into that position at some point, too.

Directing Marilyn Monroe was like directing Lassie. You needed fourteen takes to get each one of them right.

I enjoy editing when I'm directing, but when someone else is directing, that's their film to cut.

Anybody can direct a picture once they know the fundamentals. Directing is not a mystery, it's not an art. The main thing about directing is: photograph the people's eyes.

Directing was a natural thing for me. Actually, it was far less stressful directing than being the lead actor. I was able to have my input in all aspects of it.

Directing is something I always wanted to do. I started when I was 13 directing scenes in high school and then plays in college with my theatre company.

Art is manipulation, the management of material, the directing of fate... Who does that directing?

Directing is not about gender. Directing is individual to the actual individual. From woman to woman, directing is completely different. It's about giving more than half the population a chance to express themselves, you know what I mean? It doesn't always mean it's going to be more sensitive.

I think I'm good with actors. I like directing actors. I also like to show up and just do an acting gig. Where I'm just a hired gun, I don't have to have an opinion on anything.I never got involved in all this stuff because I wanted to control stuff; I got involved in writing and producing because I wasn't getting interesting acting gigs. In a way I'm grateful that I didn't get interesting roles, because it made me pull my finger out and do some work.

As a director, you have to know what actors are doing. You're the one telling them what to do. The actors' job is to come prepared to the set, but sometimes, if they're beginning actors or people who are non-actors, you have to teach them how to act.

For me, writing is a part of directing. It's the first stage of directing.

Directing is like cooking, it's like cuisine. You cannot make a great dish with bad ingredients. I have great actors, and I'm putting them together. That's all I'm doing.

Directing, you have to put yourself in a certain state, it’s all about the energy you have and the energy you transmit to people, to the actors, to the crew. It’s peculiar. There’s a Chinese saying: “The first part that rots is the head.” It really does. I’ve seen it.

The film [Close Up] made itself, to a large extent. The characters involved were very real, I wasn't directing the actors so much as being directed by them. So it was a very particular film.

I'm directing the Sky show. I'm not going to be in it. I'm just writing and directing it. So that'll satisfy that part of my brain.

Commercial directing felt like a very natural transition from my comedy, sketch, music video directing experience.

Before I start directing a show, I try to spend a few weeks hanging around the set, getting to know the crew and talking to the actors about how they like to work. Who is fussy? Who is left-handed? Who wants to go home early, and who is the perfectionist?

Sean Penn, for his acting as well as his writing and directing. There are so many actors I respect, but his reach is so wide.

As a director, I have to feel realism from actors, and they can't be plastic. The words for me are secondary, but the chemistry between the actors is most important. However, you have to go by the script because it's related to production, otherwise you will not finish your project. My background are acting, film production, directing, and I studied them for many years. Keep in mind that you need many other skills when you are starting any film project related to real life.

I worked with many directors in my life, but Tim Miller is definitely my favorite. He not only has a beautiful sense of directing actors, but he also shares a great love and passion for the comic book world, as I do.

I think directing and writing are very different jobs. Obviously, directing is a more social and managerial job. The other thing about directing is that it's a very, very pragmatic job, and writing isn't.

I love being a writer-director. I couldn't imagine directing without writing it. You have to write and tell your stories - that's what directing is to me.

I did a good bit of episodic television directing, but directing a movie is so much more complicated.

A firm is successful when the costs of directing employee effort are lower than the potential gain from directing.

After graduating from University, I began directing in theatre too, and I've been directing, writing and acting ever since, which has allowed me to continue this traveler lifestyle.

I did a lot of small black-box theater in New York when I was starting out. I'd get a group of actors together to do workshops and readings. And I ended up directing three or four productions.

I like writing and directing. I enjoy telling stories, and I think it's born in a comedian to end up directing.

With directing, you have to wake up early, which stinks, but you get to hang out with the crew, you're laughing, you're active, and you're working with the actors. It's just more fun than writing. Writing is very hard.

I don't see myself directing things I don't write because, to me, directing was just an extension of the writing process.

My approach to directing is to not do very much directing. I'm mainly interested in what the creative group individually and together are thinking.

Choreography is amazing. I'm still a dancer, yet I transitioned into choreography then as a Creative Director. All of these creative elements are brought out of being a dancer. Directing is something that comes out of understanding movement and choreography. Directing movement is directing a dance piece.

In general, the few directors that I've worked with that I really respect have taught me a lot about who I am and they've opened me up as an actor. I want to take some of that to apply it to when I'm directing actors.

The difference between directing film and directing television is so stark simply because TV is a living breathing organism already when you direct an episode.

I never went to school for directing. I studied theater with a director. I followed plays to see how a director would talk to the actors. I tried to make my own school.

Directing is such a crucial part of the writing process; you start directing and you see what does not work. "Oh, God, what was I thinking?" and then you can rearrange it.

Directing is kind of like acting through other people. You see moments and you see things and if you don't see the actors hit it, you paint in those little spaces and tell them what direction to go in.

I hear about actors being exterior actors and actors being instinctual actors and I always think it's crap. Anybody who knows anything about it knows that good actors do both - they do inside-outward and they do outside-inward. You can't not do both.

I don't think the concept of "directing actors" exists in the sense that if you get what you order from an actor you'll always get bad acting. Every actor is scared just like a regular person.

I love directing because you get to see your film come to life. You get to work with the actors. There's something magical about each piece of it.

Some friends of mine who are actors feel directing shuts them down and kills all their impulses, but the worst thing for me is if I feel a director hasn't noticed.

When I'm directing actors, I often find myself slipping in sports metaphors, like: 'Don't go for the punch line here, just put it up on a T-ball stand so she can hit it out of the park.'

It would be a great vacation to act in a movie if I weren't directing it. But to do it while you're directing interferes with your concentration, and I wouldn't do that again.

I don't really like directing. I've had a good relationship with actors, but I can do what I do and back off. I don't want that much romancing. I don't want them to call me up at two in the morning saying, 'I don't know who I am.

I love actors, both my parents were actors, and the work with actors is the most enjoyable part of making a film. It's important that they feel protected and are confident they won't be betrayed. When you create that atmosphere of trust, it's in the bag - the actors will do everything to satisfy you.

Directing was easy for me because I was a writer director and did all my directing when I wrote the screenplay.

I studied as an actor at the theatre conservatoire in Quebec, but by the time I got to my third year, I was more interested in directing. There's more to it than helping actors get round a stage: it's a wonderful way of telling stories.

I always feel that I'm sort of co-directing with my fellow actors. And you can tell when something's going on that really interests them and they approve of. And then you can sort of tell when there's not.

I'll say this: I think from a directing standpoint, 'Loving' is my most accomplished film. Strictly from a technical, directing point of view.

Directing her was like directing Lassie. You need 14 takes to get each one of them right.

It's a tremendous asset if you have a visual eye because you can make huge visual statements in a very theatrical way and play to the strength of theatre. But the high end of directing is working with actors and making the acting the best it can be.

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.

Directing an opera is similar to directing a play. The singing must not get in the way of the drama.

I hope always to be busy, even if only directing an orchestra in the pit. However, I should prefer to produce movies or be the directing head of a radio corporation.

Well you know, Woody doesn't rehearse, as opposed to my own method of directing where I really work with actors around a round table for weeks, examining the values of the material, so his technique is very different.

I love to direct! I get really jazzed by directing, but directing is not the same kind of personal expression, the same kind of personal intimate expression that writing is. Because when you're directing, you're basically managing, basically getting out of people doing their job, except when you see them going astray.