Quotes About Filmmaking

When I'm actually making a film and trying to find solutions, I like to watch making-of documentaries about huge films, like 'Gladiator.' That couldn't be more apart from what I'm doing, but you see Ridley Scott facing huge problems and fixing them.

Making films is my hobby. It relaxes me; it is my life, and it's one of the best jobs in the world. I go to work and solve problems, fight robots, kill aliens, and kiss beautiful women. I'm a very lucky man.

I was going to go and do what I should do as a filmmaker and make slightly larger films each time, learn my craft, make mistakes and solve them.

I think with a lot of filmmakers, their first film is their best film because they had to think on their feet and solve problems with ingenuity.

Making a movie is a lot of problem solving.

My parents said, Oh, he's going to be a director someday. I wanted to be an actor.

Everything that is somehow related to direction and filmmaking fascinates me, like cinematography.

If you're not prepared, and you're not passionate, and you don't push yourself to a level of human exhaustion on every level, mentally and physically and creatively... I've seen directors who approach it casually, and they do somehow maintain better hours... but I could never be that guy. I am up and editing all night.

At least I want to be making films that are somehow born out of me that are stories I want to tell. The challenge is figuring out how to do it where you can make them personal, yet still deliver to an audience a film experience that is satisfying and emotional, and that's what I'm trying to do.

I'd love to just continue making original films from scratch, but it doesn't mean I won't try my hand at something else in the meantime.

I used to love Kapil Dev and, like any schoolboy, wanted to become a cricketer till I started dreaming of making movies.

Our filmmakers need to be true to their culture to gain appreciation at international level. Though I don't wish to generalize but do I feel that Indianness is lacking in most Indian films these days.

Shooting in Hong Kong, you can do whatever you want, even change the script every day. In Hollywood, you have to have a lot of meetings.

My father would schedule meetings over breakfast. Film-makers such as Rakesh Roshan and Prakash Jha have seen me as a child run around the house.

I like figuring out where I need to be mentally so that I'm not thinking about the camera and that it's second nature. I want to get to a place where I can exist within the confines of what you can do with filmmaking and not have to think about it.

Working with Subhash Ghai is always a different experience. Subhashji is my mentor. I'm always glad to work with him.

My background is in filmmaking, and my mentor is Dusan Makavejev, who combined fiction and documentary.

Aditya Chopra is my mentor and one of my favorite directors.

African film makers are scraping by on a mere pittance.

For my part, as a filmmaker, I've never been a fly-on-the-wall documentarian. I have no commitment to that method. I believe it's a lie.

I would always direct my own stuff in Mexico.

But, I've made films in Japan, in Yugoslavia, all over Europe, all over the United States, Mexico, but not Hollywood.

Michael Mann's always been one of my heroes.

Even for the most difficult scenes, and there are difficult scenes in the film, and because Michael Haneke is such a great film-maker - I think a great film-maker is not only being inspired, but how to do it, how to make it as real as possible, knowing that it's not real.