Quotes About Actors

It's a real honor to have my stories up on the big silver screen, at a cost of hundreds of millions of dollars. It's great fun flying out to L.A. for premieres and meeting all the actors and directors.

I think all actors have a similar deal. You want some people who understand. Although it looks great - and is great - there are also shoddy moments when you feel really rotten, and when it's going well, you're not allowed to complain.

I follow Elle Fanning's career. I really like to follow actors who are a similar age to me. Just to see what they're up to.

I'm a great believer that actors are very similar to session musicians. You wouldn't ask a session musician, 'How do you play jazz,' and then, 'How do you play classical?' They just do it, because if they don't do it, they don't eat.

I've seen so many excellent actors - excellent actors - who, the minute they're told they're in a comedy, turn into God knows what - creatures from another planet! I mean they just... the voice changes, they don't look the same, it's like - it has no similarity to any living human being, do you know what I mean?

Sometimes the best parts are the leading men. But the little parts can be similarly gratifying.

I wanted the opportunity to work with Judy Davis and Simon Wincer.

I don't usually direct actors in the classic sense of that word. Instead, I try to remind the characters before the shoot what's going on in a very simple way. I then watch them, their inventions as actors, approving or not approving what they're doing.

Pašovi invited me to see his Grad (City), a collage, with music, of declamations, partly drawn from texts by Constantine Cavafy, Zbigniew Herbert, and Sylvia Plath, using a dozen actors;

doormats. It was true that actors had a perception, an understanding of human motive, that normal people lacked. It had nothing to do with intelligence, and very little to do with education.

Four completely sober men on the set of Pineapple Express.

I look forward to the day when indigenous actors can play Hamlet and Ophelia and not just Othello and Desdemona.

I haven't done a lot of voice work, but I know that a lot of shows will just bring in the actors individually, and they will just do what is on the paper. You miss out on that connection of having everyone there.

In this industry, very few actors can control their career.

It's such a small industry here you inevitably end up working with the same people over and over again. There are only so many actors to go around, which is good for us.

I remember watching Robert Powell many years ago. He did 'Jesus of Nazareth,' and I remember thinking that was probably my favorite. Once I got the role, I didn't want to watch anything, because it only influences what you do.

I did have a lot of years watching and appreciating dance and theater and all of those kind of things, and it has informed the way that I work with actors and the way I approach things.

You just find the best actors that you can. There's an inherent drama within the framework of scares and killings and all that. In 'Scream,' there is very real drama that would be in almost any drama.

Actors are a great subject for a comedy. They're inherently funny because, like sportsmen, they take themselves so seriously.

There is always a hesitancy with actors, and inhibitions can get into the work, so you have to figure out how to make it feel so loose that you can do anything, and if it is not right, that is okay because we'll do it again.

To me, the screenplay only becomes the Bible of the film after the actors have been cast. You go over the initial script with them and listen to the way they talk. Then you try to do a rewrite to accommodate them.

I'm not a pyrotechnical director; I'm not good with all those innovative things. What I am interested in is how actors can touch the heads and hearts of an audience.

In a collaborative environment directors hire actors because they want their input, not just their bodies.

When actors give their input, it can be very ego-driven, and directors are scared of that.