Quotes About Director

Ten years ago, it was really difficult for a young actress to walk onto a set and disagree with the director and having that be OK and have a conversation about it and everyone be cool with it.

So when I got the chance to do my first talk show, 50 years ago last month, I never had any writers. There was no budget - it was just me and the camera and my friend who was the director. I talked about what I'd done that week.

Ken Russell was wonderful to me. I'd heard all these things about how he'd yell and scream at people, but I found him to be a very nice, normal person.

Going into live action, the perception I had was that to be a director, you had to be loud, you had be physically fit, wear cool hats, have a beard, and yell, 'Action!' really loud. And I'm none of those things.

I feel like I'm a filmmaker; I don't feel I need to yell action and cut.

And as a director, you make 1,000 decisions a day, mostly binary decisions: yes or no, this one or that one, the red one or the blue one, faster or slower. And it's the culmination of those decisions that define the tone of the film and whether or not it moves people.

I suppose where I am sort of reflects the work I have chosen to do. Are there occasional frustrations because I can't work with a certain director because it's a big studio movie, and I don't have enough of a studio profile? The answer is yes. But generall... generally, I have the career I have chosen myself.

You don't often get a proposal to do Tolstoy for a really interesting director - that's easy to say yes to.

Truth be told, I didn't want to be on T.V. I was going to be a writer or producer or a director, and at the end of my sophomore year, my department chairman put me up for a job doing weekend weather in Syracuse, New York.

When I walked in to read with Edie Falco, it was nice, because I auditioned in New York, and it was very quick. You walk in, there's Edie, the producers, the director, and a camera. I read three scenes, and it was done.

I was a child actor in 'Deliverance,' but not the banjo player. It was my dad's big movie as a director, and at the very end there's a scene where Jon Voight comes home to his wife. I played his young son.

I can tell you that from the director's chair, young actors love to be challenged, to be given killer lines that take time to wrap their mind around.

When I auditioned for Tim Robbins for 'Cradle Will Rock,' the young girl who read with me was very young, and I said to Tim, 'I'm sorry, but I don't have enough imagination to pretend this girl is my husband!' And he said, 'Well, I'll read it with you.' Which was very nice; he was the director. And I ended up getting the part.

Both 'Udaan' and 'Lootera' were largely rehearsed. With 'Trapped,' I left room for improvisation.

I travel light as a director. I don't have monitors on my set.

I got good recognition in the industry after working for 'Kandireega'. I traveled with director Santosh Srinivas right from the scripting stage for that film.

'Kaaka Muttai' has gone places. It's a great feeling. There is respect from family and friends. The film has travelled to international festivals, and I was able to meet big directors.

Hawks is great, 'The Treasure of Sierra Madre,' 'The Big Sleep'... He could do the Salt-of-the-Earth very well. He was a very smooth director; a very good film architect in terms of his storytelling.

You are treated like a cog in a machine. The director might be obsessing so much with the stunts that he doesn't notice your performance, and the producer may just be an insane money man, but I have no snobbery about the movies.

I've stood up to producers before, and even a director. I saw them being abusive. A lot of people on the set are scared to say stuff when they're not being treated right.

A word on 'Kingdom of Heaven:' if you get the four-disc set, which is 3 hr. 8 min., you'll see why it's such a good movie. It was a real passion project, and it's the film I'm most proud of. I think it was treated incredibly unfairly.

I know how a cinematographer wants to be treated by their director, and so I already have a leg up in that department, and I know what would be insulting to say to a DP because I've been one for so long.

David Anspaugh, who was my first director, on 'Rudy,' was all about empowering the actor, making you feel comfortable and appreciated, allowing you to keep your dignity, and treating you like a man. Being treated like a grown-up makes you proud to be involved in a film.

I learned a lot about filmmaking from my dad. Starting when I was a child, I would listen to my dad as an actor, writer, director and producer talking about films - you know what the treatment would be in the opening, in the middle, and in the ending.