I wanted to be a director and comedian and my plan was to go to NYU. I wanted to be in UCB.
When 'The Pacific' came around, I had to audition the old-fashioned way. It was the casting director and then the producer and then another producer and another producer and then Spielberg and Hanks.
There was always a part of me that wanted to be an old-time director. But I couldn't do that. I'm not a pro.
Andy was not a director and not a writer. He operated the camera a little bit, and he wasn't even so good at that.
It was great to watch Orson Welles, not only as an actor but as a director.
The guy that made me wanna make movies... and this is off the wall-is a guy named Michael Pal, the British director.
When I started crediting myself as writer and director, I saw that as a political act.
So many features at Sundance seemed to be powered more on the director's need to be a director than any particular story.
ThinThread was not the program of record of my predecessor, Ken Minihan, OK. I did not make ThinThread the program of record while I was director. After I left in 2005, Keith Alexander also chose not to make ThinThread the program of record.
I think it's the director's prerogative, not the studio's, to go back and reinvent a movie.
In the case of the FBI, I revealed that William Sessions, the FBI director, had been engaging in abuses of all kinds, and I exposed that. And that led to his dismissal by President Clinton.
A director just pushes them a little this way or that way.
And I may often question choices I make as a producer. But I've never questioned the choices I make as a director.
I share a very good rapport with Shah Rukh, so I was at ease working with him, and Imtiaz is a dream director for any actor.
They seem much rarer now, those auteur films that come out of a director's imagination and are elliptical and hermetic. All those films that got me into independent cinema when I was watching it seem thin on the ground.
To be honest, the real reason I did 'Drive' was because of Nicolas Winding Refn, the director.
The director's very important to me, particularly when the director has a recognizable style.
The record producer is the music world's equivalent of a film director.
When I was approached to remake 'Vinnaithandi Varuvaaya,' I felt that it was a good way to reach out to a wider audience, every director wants that.
I'm not someone who comes onstage and says, 'I'm rewriting this now.' I don't think it's fair to the writers or the director, or the other actors.
