Top 1200 Directors Quotes & Sayings

I think the three Mexican directors - Alejandro Inarritu, Alfonso Cuaron, Guillermo del Toro - gave all of us foreign, and particularly Latino, directors a big break.

The key is working with great directors. A film is so many different people and all their talents, but particularly the directors, because of the idiosyncrasies of that person.

Yes, there are directors I admire, the mavericks. Altman. There are many good directors.

I can say yes to some directors without even reading a script. But the first-time directors I've worked with, the scripts have not been perfect, but they had something that I liked.

I wanted to be a movie director. I was just obsessed with watching movies and camera shots and directors. I read autobiographies and stuff of directors.

I don't go to a lot of other directors' sets; directors don't come to mine. Directors are all very cordial with each other, but they're not necessarily friendly.

I don't want to rescind American directors but I think that European directors in general, because of the size of the nations in Europe are exposed to all different cultures, they can easily travel from one distinct culture to another in a matter of hours - you can drive for two weeks across the United States and you're in the same basic culture - so there is a certain breadth of understanding and sophistication that they bring to it and frankly, in some cases they are less expensive than American directors.

I watched a lot of silent directors who were absolutely great like John Ford and Fritz Lang, Tod Browning, and also some very modern directors like The Coen Brothers. The directors take the freedom within their own movies to be melodramatic or funny when they chose to be. They do whatever they want and they don't care about the genre.

I think the kind of togetherness and understanding between music directors and singers, and between producers and directors, is not the same anymore. Now, it's all too professional.

I subscribe to the great George G. Scott quote, "All actors are in trouble. Directors who don't help are a pain in the ass". We all need help from directors. We are all equally insecure.

The thing I love about working with first-time directors is that it's always quite shocking how little difference there is between them and directors who've been directing all their lives.

I don't have any problem working with first-time directors because all directors have to start somewhere and all great directors have had a first film. So, if you take the view that you don't want to work with a first-timer, you might miss out on a fantastic opportunity.

Television can become a bit of a treadmill for directors. You come in, nobody knows you, the actors are already doing what they're doing, and you're just one of a number of directors who comes in.

When I came to Mumbai, I was working behind the scenes for 10 long years. Back then, music video budgets were insignificant and I had no assistant directors or art directors for most of the songs I directed.

My biggest advice for women writer/directors is to always be attempting to make work that avoids pandering to the conceptions that the industry has put in place for "women directors."

I've worked with a couple of female directors now, and I think that they're amazing. As good or better than guy directors.

I don't really consider myself a female director, and I don't want to do so for other women. Female directors are just directors.

I'd worked with directors who wouldn't collaborate. Then I've also worked with directors who didn't really know what they wanted. I knew I didn't want to be either one of those guys - or girls.

You have to go through a big process with the Directors Guild in order to get co-direction credit. They sit you in front of this microphone in front of like 40 legendary directors, and they start grilling you.

There are times when you work with directors on set, and things are a bit rudderless, and those can be good directors.

It's entirely to do with personality, I think. There are good directors who talk a lot, bad directors who talk a lot, and good directors who don't say much and vice-versa. It just depends on whether people respond to that personality and whether people have a willingness to do something for them.

Nowadays, there are seven music directors in one film. I had never heard of such a thing before. If one of our old music directors was told to share a score with others, he would have left the assignment.

That really sets great directors apart from good directors: their ability to make you feel like you matter, even if your part is much smaller. That's one thing I found with most of the great directors I worked with: They all have that skill. Not everyone takes the time.

It's not that writing staffs don't change at all, but they don't change very much. Directors are freelancers. There are directors who do five or 10 episodes of a show every year for years, but most directors are freelance, they come and go.

I understand the formula that producers hire directors and directors are hired to direct and actors are hired to act. I don't have any conflict with any directors because I know they're the boss.

There are two types of directors: the directors who take and directors who give.

I thought that Hollywood was just for geniuses and that directors come from three generations of directors. I was worried that I was not up to the challenge of making a movie. Then realized that all a director has to do is know what he wants to do.

I felt I knew Lugosi. Like him, I had worked for good directors and terrible directors.

When I first started out, it was very, very difficult to even get in the room with directors or casting directors because they would see that I hadn't been to drama school and wouldn't want to see me. Now, I feel like it's changing. We have this new generation of a lot of writers, directors and actors who are just breaking through, and they're doing it for the passion.

Any filmmaker, big directors, and I'm not dropping any names - I actually have couple names I want to say, but I will not - we have a ratio. Each thing you repeat, my ratio is one to four.Actually some people are ratio one to 34. I know couple directors, big directors, they are just shooting over and over.

Yeah, I've worked with a couple of female directors, now, and I think that they're amazing. As good or better than guy directors.

Most directors, I discovered, need to be convinced that the screenplay they're going to direct has something to do with them. And this is a tricky thing if you write screenplays where women have parts that are equal to or greater than the male part. And I thought, 'Why am I out there looking for directors?'—because you look at a list of directors, it's all boys. It certainly was when I started as a screenwriter. So I thought, 'I'm just gonna become a director and that'll make it easier.'

I can't imagine any director directing a screenplay of mine, because the great directors all have very personal styles, and the ones that don't are not very interesting directors.

I'll put it this way: with the kind of films that I do - creatively driven, with interesting directors and writers - I don't feel the need to work with the super established, top-tier directors that are out there.

I like directors who come ready to challenge you to ask the right questions about your character, and I know that directors appreciate that in actors as well.

I guess once you've been acting for a long time, you glean the great bits of good directors and the bad bits from other directors, and you know the way that you would like to be directed.

What if lawmakers never spoke to their constituents? Oddly enough, that's exactly how corporate America operates. Shareholders vote for directors, but the directors rarely, if ever, communicate with them.

I'm not as savvy and knowledgable about all of the directors that are out there, but as a person, I'm really open-minded and love meeting new people and watching the way directors film and their perspectives and following their lead.

I have worked with top directors like Rajamouli and Vinayak and with upcoming directors like Vamsi.

Most of the directors that I show my movies before the final cut, are directors that I admire, and who do movies that are very different from mine.

I like bold directors. I like directors that go against the norm in a way.

Favourite directors change, like favorite authors. I had a passion for Gide and Stein and Faulkner. But now they're no use to me anymore. I've assimilated them - so, enough, they are a closed chapter. This also applies to film directors.

Marvel has this tradition, and I think that Sony has this tradition too, of hiring directors for Spider-Man who are dramatic directors. That are directors who are interested in human beings, in characters, in drama, and who are really good with actors. That kind of feels like a Spider-Man director to me. And because Spider-Man is always as big as the films that are being made at Marvel, it always is character and story. You can never take that out.

I don't think I have advice for female directors as opposed to male directors. I think all first-time directors should try and be as prepared as they possibly can, because it's hard!

Directors don't get to see other directors at work - they're the only one on the set. I've met directors who've asked me what another filmmaker is like. So, there's probably nobody better placed to make all the comparisons and to pick up stuff than an actor.

All directors are control freaks and very obsessive. I get the feeling that directors as kids, they all have had a childhood with not too much contact with other kids. They constructed their own reality and they continue to do it. It's a funny breed, directors.

Peter Chelsom and Edgar Wright are totally different directors and worlds apart, but both really accomplished directors who are certain of how they want to make a film.

There are a lot of female directors in Lebanon but we can't really talk about a true film industry, it's still very small. But we do have a few female directors.

I go where the material is, and I feel like I'm looking for really strong directors. That's the key ingredient. There are some directors I would move the sun and earth for, or stop the rotation of the planets, just to work with them.

Ultimately, mentorship plays such a big role in breaking directors that successful male directors tend to reach the helping hand to guys who remind them of themselves. We need more women directors so they can reach out to girls who remind them of themselves.

When I was an undergraduate in Film & TV at NYU/Tisch School of the Arts, most of the projects I shot had male directors, and only a few had female directors.

When I was in college, my graduation thesis was called 'Female Directors.' I interviewed all of the important female directors from Mexico. There were four. That was it.

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 want to work with great directors. I've picked films based on the script or the character and seen them collapse because the directors were not strong visionaries.

In the earlier days, people used to be very emotional about making films. There used to be a great friendship between music directors and directors; today that is missing.

In terms of directors, great actors make directors - Gary Oldman was great to work with, for me; Tim Roth, too. You work with Scorsese and Spielberg and they were wonderful directors, but for me, working with actor/directors is special.

Big producers trust the music directors. Small directors are insecure but like to experiment.

I adapt to directors, I don't like making directors adapt to me. If I'm with Clint Eastwood then I'll do two takes, if I'm with Fincher I'll do 50 - though the thought of that sounds horrible.

I think one of my favorite directors is P.T. Anderson - living directors, I should say. And Spike Jonze is one of my favorites, Gus Van Sant.

You work with great directors and terrible directors, and so you learn; you take what you think will work for you.