Quotes About Directing

I went to graduate school for directing at AFI in L.A., and I wanted to be a director.

Riskin went into directing and made a film with Cary Grant which applied to the letter all the ideas which had made his comedies famous. It had everything except that little something - and the film was a failure.

I seem to gravitate toward the dark side of things when it comes to directing. I love action, but I love the drama as well.

I made adult films for over 12 years. Apart from the directing aspect, I did all of it - the filming, the editing and the stills. I shot about 300 movies, which was great fun.

Directing movies is the best job there is, that's all. I can hardly say a word after that. It's just a great job.

Directors are denied a great pleasure, which is that of being on stage.

The first two movies I directed failed, when I was 21 and 23, and that was the greatest thing that could have happened.

With episodic, kind of one-hour directing, they always have guest directors come in, so they don't have the same person week after week. You get a break.

I've directed a couple of times in the theater, but I wouldn't make a habit of it because it's too consuming.

I do have weird habits when I'm directing, or even think as a director, like when I move a cup, I make sure to put it back in the exact right place.

Great actors are so easy to direct. It's like they're big 747s that you just have to move left and right, and I don't really need to direct. I need to put them in the right costume, with the right haircut, in the right location, and with the right actor to act with. And then my job is almost done, with a great script, obviously.

When I started out, there were three things that made film people look at me with condescension, I was young, I was black, and I was female. I have won a certain respect, but I think the film community still sees directing as a male job.

I'm thinking, this is Robert Redford. You know, he's won an Academy Award, he's talking to me about directing a movie he's in. So you just think that it's Hollywood stuff or whatever.

I actually have two children now, and sometimes I wonder if that's it. Because they do make writing and directing more complicated and more difficult, especially now that they're very young.

I was aware that I was the first person of all time getting to direct a Wonder Woman film, and that was taken very seriously.

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 don't think I could do what Woody Allen or Clint Eastwood or Ben Stiller do, where they direct a movie and they star in it. I would just be like, 'Oh, I don't even want to look at my face.'

It was kind of scary because working with Woody Allen becomes sort of a big deal in your mind. He directs in that Woody Allen character some of the time - he has these idiosyncrasies that are really charming and funny.

In terms of directing, there's a number of directors who definitely had a great impact on me, Woody Allen certainly being one of them.

Steven Spielberg, Woody Allen, you name it - I'm interested. I'm free. I'm looking for acting work. At the same time, you have to find a role you're right for, and then there's a slew of other actresses. That's why I will pursue more directing. It's like, who needs a boss? I'm right here.

Woody Allen likes to do a lot of master shots. He likes to get the whole thing in one take, and so you could be going along doing a scene, and then the next to last line, all of a sudden, you stumble, and you have to go back to first base.

I guess I say this for younger actors out there: you have to be brave, and you have to be ready to fail, and that's the only way you can be unique. So when a director is confident enough in what they're doing, and they allow their actors to be brave and bring in stuff, the more likely it's going to work out okay.

I majored in screenwriting and playwriting in school - and wanted to make films as a career. But when I directed my first short in college - which was called 'Extras' - I lost thousands of dollars and made an unsatisfying and incomplete film.

Writers are always sort of threatening to direct, and sometimes they do, and sometimes they don't.