Quotes About Film

Most of the great directors I've worked with - De Palma, Spike Lee - like rehearsals.

I'm from New York, and yet I've done only one film executive-produced by Spike Lee and have never done a film that Spike Lee directed. I've never done a film that Keenan Wayans has directed, or Bill Duke.

Everybody knows when you've got a role in a Spike Lee movie, you're gonna blow up. But I happen to be the only person who's had the lead in the two Spike Lee movies nobody saw.

'Straight Outta Compton' is my first biopic, my first period piece, and I got a chance to kind of get out there like some of my idols, you know, like Scorsese, Spielberg, Spike Lee, the guys who came before me. You know, I'm feeling good about it.

I felt a little anxious/nervous representing a real person in a Spike Lee film.

Selling a film option and getting a studio on board can be a slow process, and until things are official, you never want to spill the beans.

I really never thought I was that good at film. And honestly still don't. My strength is language. My background is monologues and a certain kind of Brechtian spin on theater.

'Mercury' being a silent film needed a strong background score that could give you chills down the spine.

I love 'Spirited Away,' that's a huge one.

Where people are now in terms of the economic crisis, they're looking at what we think is the bottom, and I think that's when people look to film and to spirituality.

Film is not as exhilarating, not as physically, mentally, or spiritually challenging, as theatre.

Historically the director has been the key creative element in a film and we must maintain that. We must protect that, in spite of the fact that there is new technology that's continually trying to erode that.

I want all of my films to be grounded in reality, and I think 'Midnight Special' is the most grounded film I've ever made, in spite of its genre.

The one mistake I will always kick myself for is not doing 'Will Success Spoil Rock Hunter?' It was written for me.

I did my first film with Francis Ford Copploa, which spoiled the hell out of me.

You really have to be careful with the clues you lay into the film - if they're too heavy-handed, or you've pandered to a slightly stupider audience, then you've spoiled it for the people who are even slightly smart.

Albert Grossman called my office and spoke with my partner Richard Leacock and asked if we'd be interested in making a film with his client, Bob Dylan.

'Night of the Living Dead,' then 'Dawn of the Dead' is a few weeks later, 'Day of the Dead' months later, and 'Land of the Dead' is three years later. Each one spoke about a different decade and was stylistically different.

Christopher Lloyd was actually the first person - or certainly one of the first few - who ever spoke to me on film.

I definitely have moments in my life where I discovered a film, and the language of the film itself spoke to me in a way, as if someone came up to you and started speaking a language you'd never heard but understood and was able to express things the language you knew could not.

'Shaadi... ' made people see me as an actor. A lot of filmmakers called and said I was really good in the film... People from the industry - who never spoke to me, didn't think I was a great actor because they hadn't seen my work - said I can act.

I'm doing 'Maula Jutt 2,' which is a Punjabi film. For me, it's a new experience because I have never spoken Punjabi, and I hope everyone is going to love it.

I'm the spokesman for ADT, and ADT, brother, pays better than most actors make on film.

I'm really proud of Blair Witch Project as a film, but as far as the cultural phenomenon of it - that was just weird luck.