Actors aren't stupid, mostly, and if there's a sensibility and an aesthetic that a director's going for, if you're aware of that too, you can do things to help that.
I think the writer's quite low down in the hierarchy really. But the fact that they took the piss out of Nicholas [Hynter] who, besides being the director, is also director of the National Theatre is, I'd have thought, slightly more risky.
Really top-notch directors, I've often worked with them just to see how they work.
I understand the directors much more. I was always rebelling against them when I was a youngster, I didn't want to be told what to do. I had no identification.
We make a contract within ourselves as actors or directors or writers about how much of ourselves we let into projects. You can actually figure out before you work on something how much blood you will have to let emotionally.
Somehow, we [ Tan Dun and director Chen Kaige] were all privileged at the time; we could be outside of China. But at the moment, we had no sense of what the future was going to be like.
You really have to bring your game and know what you want to do. And then, there are the producers and the writers and the director on the other side of the glass, and what they want. You have to be malleable to what's going to work, and you have to stay in the framework of the context.
Somebody said that I'm a bit like a sponge, grabbing things here and there, soaking stuff up. [As a director] you have to be, really.
On a simple level, you need directors who are good at action and can choreograph an action scene, but you need them to also have that sense of fun and that sense of movement and that ability to get the actors to really respond to the material in the way that you want them to. It's a very big thing.
And then, with a European director and Norwegian actors speaking in Norwegian, it was going to be very interesting. So, whatever initial trepidation or fear I may have had was alleviated by those factors. I just said, "This is something to get on board with."
For me, there was never an end game for becoming a director.
I began stealing a lot of ideas from other directors I had worked with.
I don't like the sort of hierarchical, totalitarian type of room a lot of directors can find themselves in.
I feel that I am just a storyteller, and whether I am wearing the director hat or the playwright hat, it doesn't matter.
The only way that Hollywood ever skews toward liberal is because part of what we make out of Hollywood involves writers, actors, directors, musicians, set designers, and photographers. In general, people like that are going to be more progressive, more open minded, a little more altruistic.
David O. Russell is probably my favorite filmmaker. He's not only a great director, but he's also a great writer.
All you can really do as director is sort of set a tone.
I like great directors who are scarce. Prolific ones are nice too but for me, there's something about the scarcity that makes it all the more valuable.
Therefore, when you see the end result, it's difficult to see who's the director, me or them. Ultimately, everything belongs to the actors - we just manage the situation.
I am still very surprised that I managed to make that film [Close Up]. When I actually look back on that film, I really feel that I was not the director but instead just a member of the audience.
I do think that we are sometimes, as directors, guilty of portraying or asking our actors to behave in certain ways that are perhaps not very morally acceptable. I'm not the only one.
When I write something, I want the best director to direct it. And that's not going to be me.
Subtle, funny and touching, with a striking downbeat authenticity. Director Craig Zobel is the real thing.
ADMIRABLY BOLD. There's something grand about the film's sincerity and the intensity of its emotions and something fresh and bold about the way director Gray uses the conventions of romantic melodrama.
