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Quotes on directing
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Our great film and stage directors have tremendous insight. Here is a selection of attributed quotes showcasing some of that understanding.
Acting is the easiest money you'll ever make in your life, and directing is probably the hardest money.
Charles S. Dutton
Being a doctor has taught me a lot about directing. You're doing the same thing: You're reconstructing the manifold of behavior to the point where an audience says, yes, that's exactly like people I know.
Jonathan Miller
Casting is 65 percent of directing.
John Frankenheimer
Fundamentally, whether directing in the theatre or a film, you have to be a good storyteller, regardless of the form. The thing I had to work hardest at was thinking in shots.
John Crowley
I am drawn to writing and directing as it is most like the feeling I had when I was a teenager with my puppet theatre. You are more in control of everything and involved in every aspect of production, so more challenged and fulfilled.
Richard E. Grant
I mean, if you are directing actors to do one thing and then directing them to do something else entirely because the one thing you wanted them to do may not work, then you are just shattering their confidence in the project.
Atom Egoyan
The directing of a picture involves coming out of your individual loneliness and taking a controlling part in putting together a small world. A picture is made. You put a frame around it and move on. And one day you die. That is all there is to it.
John Huston
The more decisions you make, the better, statistically, your odds of success are. And what I also learned was, it doesn't matter: anything can be fixed. When you're directing, you can agonize, but you can't indulge. Stuff has to happen.
Tony Goldwyn
Well, actors get very frustrated with giving control to other people. They have their own ideas and wants for their characters. Warren Beatty once told me that he thought actors ended up directing out of frustration. If you have a strong sense of how to communicate a film, you should direct. The problem is that it is a huge commitment. I'd rather direct a play than a film due to the time. A movie can tie you up for a year or more.
Alec Baldwin
You must find the note, the correct key, for your story. If you find it, everything will work. If you do not, everything will stick out like elbows.
Louis Malle
I think movies are a director's medium in the end. Theater is the actor's medium. Theater is fast, and enjoyable, and truly rewarding. I believe in great live performance.
Sam Mendes
A director must be a policeman, a midwife, a psychoanalyst, a sycophant and a bastard.
Billy Wilder
Logan L. Masterson
Nashville Theatre Examiner
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