In this post, you will find great Films Quotes from famous people, such as Claude Chabrol, Stephen Daldry, Mike Leigh, Kartik Aaryan, Rohit Shetty. You can learn and implement many lessons from these quotes.
I draw cinematic and photography and art references from everywhere. That’s part of my job. So yes, you watch films, you see artists for palettes, photographers for mood.
None of the films I’ve done was designed for a mass audience, except for ‘Indiana Jones.’ Nobody in their right mind thought ‘American Graffiti’ or ‘Star Wars‘ would work.
Independent film is almost nonexistent right now, because all the distributers that used to love to put out these little art films are all out of business right now, because it costs so much to open a movie.
Scoring animated films, I have the exact same approach and philosophy as I do for a live action. It’s all story- and character-driven. I don’t care if it’s a mouse or Tom Cruise.
When I was young, I wanted, most of all, to be a writer of films and film music. But Middlesbrough in 1968 wasn’t the place to be if you wanted to do movie scores.
I believe films are the mirror of society we live in.
Every actor has to make terrible films from time to time, but the trick is never to be terrible in them.
Anti-capitalism is nothing new in Hollywood. From ‘Wall-E’ to ‘Avatar,’ corporations are routinely depicted as evil. The contradiction of corporate-funded films denouncing corporations is an irony capitalism cannot just absorb, but thrive on. Yet this anti-capitalism is only allowed within limits.
I believe in living the character whether it’s in films or television.
There are two different stories in horror: internal and external. In external horror films, the evil comes from the outside, the other tribe, this thing in the darkness that we don’t understand. Internal is the human heart.
To join or not to join films was the biggest choice I had to make. I’d done two years of biogenetic engineering, was an economics graduate and a gold medalist. I had also been a Bharatanatyam dancer from age five, always won the best actress award in school. Finally, I decided to do things for my soul, chose to act.
Obviously, the cinematography of films is art, just as a still shot can be art. If I’m watching a Wes Anderson movie, the colour palettes alone, and the way they’re painted, could be art. With music, you’re a little bit limited, of course, because it’s only audio.
We have three generations at home, including my father-in-law. I keep a very low profile, and a lot of things I do are very much with the family in mind. I have actually made films with the family around me.
I’m very interested in portraying homosexual man and woman in my films because I’m interested in their lives and their problems.
When I moved to Bombay, it was very harsh. I was nothing like what I am today. I couldn’t speak a word of English. In England, people might be very understanding about that, but in Bombay, they’re not very forgiving. ‘If you don’t speak English, how do you expect to work in Hindi films?’
The life of King Jeongjo has previously inspired many films and TV dramas. ‘The King’s Wrath‘ will show the tough and charismatic sides of the king that have been undermined in past works.
All the top stars like Aamir Khan, Shah Rukh, etc. do very few films a year and I don’t think it’s affected their visibility or fan following in any way.
On films, you have the liberty of working out the details, the psychology, taking maybe more risks and takes than you can in television just because you can’t be figuring things out on the day.
If I’m going to do a big film, I’m very choosy about what I do, because I think I want to continue – in fact I’m sure I want to continue – to stay in the realm of independent films with directors and writers who are just emerging with new ideas and a different vision that hasn’t really been expressed yet.
I have to write for everyone. What really fascinates me is how you make films or make stories that can genuinely be shared by different groups.
All my films are statements, especially when I write them.
I don’t get jobs in films by auditioning. I’m not blonde. You can’t place me in movies the way you can with certain actors. It’s very difficult for my agents.
When I was a kid, I wasn’t looking at the small-budget films myself. I was looking at ‘James Bond‘ and all the major films, so I still have that energy. I still love those films.
A film like ‘Kai Po Che!’, ‘Queen’, ‘Behen Hogi Teri’ and ‘Bareilly Ki Barfi’ are not really independent films.
I’ve done a lot of Bengali films with heavyweights like Rituparna Ghosh, Buddhadeb Das Gupta and carved my niche with both commercial as well as art films.
The kind of work I do and the films I believe in, I had to take charge of making that kind of cinema.
There are a lot of movies I’d like to throw away. That’s not to say that I went in with that attitude. Any film I ever started, I went in with all the hope and best intentions in the world, but some films just don’t work.
Most of the most successful films Blumhouse has made have been rejected by everyone else. No one wanted to make ‘Get Out.’ Nobody. Nobody wanted to make ‘The Purge.’ I think it was floating around for three years before it came to us. Nobody wanted to make ‘The Gift,’ when it was a script called ‘Weirdo.’
I have a hard time articulating the emotional experience of working on a film. Even when I have meetings on films or discussing them with directors, I find that’s my biggest challenge. Different words mean different things to people.
I haven‘t got an opportunity to experiment with the dimensions of my moustache much. But yes, if the role demands, I’m ready to shave it off. I feel it’s good to have moustaches for South films, but I’d love to remove my moustache; why not?
When I began acting, my biggest fear was whether the audience will appreciate the kind of films I do.
My films do have a big following among young girls, and I want to instill confidence in them, a sense of self-appreciation – to make them feel they can be spirited and say what they feel.
I’ve made seventeen or eighteen films now, only two of which have been original screenplays, all the others have been based on short stories or novels, and I find the long short story ideal for adaptation.
My films are a personal reflection on the impact that the state – the system and the world – has on me.
If you take the ’70s with Blaxploitation pictures, there was a proliferation of black-content films and motion pictures, television, stage plays and so forth at a time when Hollywood was in trouble financially, and it was cheaper to do black films to keep the lights on until they could reestablish themselves.
A l lot of films I’ve done are essentially about women who are finding their voice, women who don’t know themselves well.
Sometimes films ignore other points of view because it’s simpler to tell the story that way, but the more genuine and sympathetic you are to different points of view and situations, the more real the story is.
I would say that no film is apolitical. There are politics in all films. Any film that is anchored in a society, any film that deals with humanity is necessarily political.
I’m going to keep making films I believe in. Whether I am successful or not is besides the point.
Acting is a learning process. And what you are doing in your early films is essentially picking up the nuances, the tricks of your trade. And somewhere along the line, you become analytical and learn to enjoy what you are doing.
There are only 24 hours in a day, and my top priority is working on my films, but I love short film experiments.
I know some black actresses who have to wait every 19 films for a role. I can be cast in practically every one as a young white male.
Films don’t decide my whole life. They are just a part of who I am. What I do in my personal life should be of no concern to the filmmakers or the fans.
To be honest, I enjoy all different types of films and experiences.
Everyone is using the Internet for almost everything – trailers, ads, movies, and short films. This is the only thing that will reach everybody in the world.
I’ve always been excited by rotoscoping, the technique used in films like ‘Waking Life,’ which fuses animation with real-life emotion. It seemed like it was a process ripe for innovation.
I’m not a master of films, I’m rather a slave.
I think India is very passionate about films. It’s almost a second religion back home. Due to that, I think film stars are – are really held in great esteem. Not that we’re complaining, but I think with that comes a lot of responsibility.
I would like to act in films of all genres.
Both ‘Thappad’ and ‘Tanhaji’ were films that we believed in and we’re proud to support.
We were for Mao, but when we saw the films he was making, they were bad. So we understood that there was necessarily something wrong with what he was saying.
In all the horror films that I have done, all of those women were strong women. I don’t feel I ever played the victim, although I was always in jeopardy.
Because I direct films, I have to live in a major English-speaking production center. That narrows it down to three places: Los Angeles, New York and London. I like New York, but it’s inferior to London as a production center. Hollywood is best, but I don’t like living there.
The day I was born, I knew I was going to act! Okay, that can sound a bit exaggerated, but I knew I want to enter films when I started understanding the world of films and saw my father going on sets. Maybe when I was just a kid.
If people are looking forward to my films, then I am happy, and I must be doing something right.
I think drug movies free the director to make intense films.
The films you do are not just for the audience. As an actor, you are putting your heart and soul into them.
Despite erasure by the media and other patriarchal institutions, there was, by 1975, a substantial body of feminist writings as well as artwork, music, films, and organization of all kinds.
Fashion designing involves a lot of work, and, as opposed to the general perception, it is different from costume designing for films. While a fashion designer can take up a costume designer’s role, it is not possible vice versa.
Each production has certain circumstances that will bring you to a certain way of making it. It is not intentional, it is not an artistic decision, the way we make films, it is the way we address to our problems.
Films like ‘Namo Venkateshaya’ give immense satisfaction, happiness, and makes us feel blessed, and so I consider it the best film in my career.
I feel like touchscreen technology blows my mind still. It just makes me think of all of the sci-fi films I enjoyed as a kid.
Successful films are very dangerous things.
I am writing a book called ‘The History of Australia in Hundred Objects.’ It’s of things we have invented in Australia. And you know, some of them are amazing. We invented the clapper boards used in films. We invented those cranes – those big long cranes used on construction sites.
I don’t see anything wrong with my films in 2016, except maybe ‘Kadalai’ and ‘Parandhu Sella Vaa.’ I did do a lot of different roles.
If I watch ‘Gone With the Wind,’ I always find it interesting. I think, ‘What’s going to happen next? What’s that character going to do?’ But you know, you never really need to watch the films you made again. They stay inside you, always with you.
I grew up loving films and making stupid movies with a good friend of mine, who now actually has a career in a really prominent special effects house, so he’s still doing it. We just started messing around with a camera.
I’m a big believer in cinema, you know – what it used to be? Images and sound, and working it out a bit. I find it exciting watching films where I just go into an impressive world.
This is what the difference is between Hong Kong and Chinese cinema – Chinese cinema was made for their own communities. It was for propaganda. But Hong Kong made films to entertain, and they know how to communicate with international audiences.
People have been asking me when I’ll make films with Dhanush and my father. Honestly, I don’t know when.
I live, therefore I make films. I make film, therefore I live. Life. Movement. I make home movies, therefore I live. I live, therefore I make home movies.
I think that films about faith made for faith-based communities have a certain tactic.
I think horror films always have to be as simple as possible.
We have to support our own films. If we don’t, how can we expect others to support them?
One of my favorite films is ‘Late Spring‘ by Yasujiro Ozu. To me, it represents film as art.
In feature films the director is God; in documentary films God is the director.
I like watching films that have very impelling content, great persuasive language.
I always start with characters rather than with a plot, which many critics would say is very obvious from the lack of plot in my films – although I think they do have plots – but the plot is not of primary importance to me, the characters are.
Yes, I was correctly quoted in saying I introduced sex into films in the 20’s, but it was sex in good taste and left a great deal to one’s imagination.
It is cool to know that my films down south are being remade in Bollywood.
I live in New York City, the stories of my films take place in New York; I’m a New York filmmaker.
I do all my films happily, and I enjoy every moment of it.
I wouldn’t do nudity in films. For me, personally… To act with my clothes on is a performance; to act with my clothes off is a documentary.
One has to be careful about the kind of content that’s shown in films or on television.
My feeling is, I do a lot of low-budget films. I don’t do low-budget acting. I have no interest in just goofballing my way through, thinking, ‘Ah, no one’s ever going to see this anyway.’
I worked initially in very low-budget independent films that I often wrote. My early work was all written by myself, and then I adapted ‘Tsotsi,’ so I was used to the writing process being, in a way, integral to my directing. I felt it really prepared me.
‘Kramer vs. Kramer’ is one of my favorite films, where you have a story that really juxtaposes a lot of ideas that we have about family and about parenting.
To me, ‘Unforgiven’ is one of the best films ever made. Aside from the fact it takes the genre and kicks it between its legs, it’s this fascinating deconstruction of the myth of the West.
Some people had fathers who were bankers or farmers, my father made films, that’s how I saw it. As for the movie stars, they were just around, some of them were friends, others weren’t, it was all just a part of my everyday life.
In Bosnia and Herzegovina, a country of few but nonetheless good films, it is almost impossible to produce a film without access to various European initiatives and funds. Creative Europe and its media program are essential for our film industry.
I’m very emotional and possessive about all my films.
I try to be eclectic in my choice of films. If I’ve done anything that’s intentional in my career, it’s to try to do as many different types of characters and as many different types of genres of movies that I can.
We’ve evolved from sitting back on our tripods and shooting wildlife films like they have been shot historically, which doesn’t work for us.
Most of my films seem to be about people bewildered by the world around them, who don’t fit into it and are trying to understand it.
‘Pi’ was one of my favorite films growing up because I thought it employed paranoia and voice-over, and also because it used this unreliable narrator in a very fascinating way.
I love ‘Titanic‘, I love ‘Romeo & Juliet’, those are my favourite films, and so it’s crazy to think that people wouldn’t connect with ‘Feel Good‘, it’s just a love story.
I am a citizen of the planet and I want to do films that appeal to people, not communities.
As a child working in films was like a hobby but now it has turned into a profession. And with that, it’s become a life that’s full of pressure and nervousness about Box Office results, competition.
It was my dad who encouraged me to come into films.
My films are personal-voice-driven films about human characters and the place we live. Technically, I’m an independent filmmaker.
The Cannes film festival is about big-budget films but also remarkable films made in different political regimes by film-makers with little resources.
I was a big fan of the Tim Burton films. I really liked the character. And I remember thinking the Batmobile was very cool.
I’d like to believe that the people that have supported me in my work or identified with me in films, the people that feel they know me, they do and they don’t have misconceptions – they understand. I believe that.
George Clooney and Brad Pitt, with those ‘Oceans‘ films they do, they get to work together, make a whole lot of money, and make a major film statement. Imagine if once a year, myself, Denzel Washington, Laurence Fishburne, James Earl Jones, we did some relevant film together to make a statement.
Indians can identify with the Indian sensibilities, and rather than taking something from foreign films, it is always good to make a movie which has been enjoyed by a certain audience or in a certain part of India and make it available to a larger audience.
People have always liked to be frightened. People love to feel that jolt of adrenaline. People love roller coasters. People love skydiving. These things that really get your heart pumping, and horror films are sort of a safe way to get that rush I guess.
I was not active in films for three years owing to some treatments I was undergoing.
I came into films with ‘Hare Rama Hare Krishna.’ My first film was actually ‘Hulchul,’ but it was released after ‘HRHK.’
I don’t like any sort of film. I hate films.
Making films take a lot of intelligence and is tough, though achieving Economics honours is tough, too.
I don’t accept films just because they have star heroes in lead. I rejected a few big films because I didn’t like the story.
I hope I inspire children to make films.
I am totally inspired by ‘Godfather,’ one of the greatest films made. Also, I am fascinated by the thought of how someone becomes a gangster and continues to be one.
Because I work so much, people think that I have a team writing for me, but that’s not why I chose to write music for films. I chose to write music because I like to write music. So every single note that comes out of my studio is written by me, and I wouldn’t be able to do two movies at the same time.
If I’d lived like my characters, I would have been dead before I’d made 16 films.
I need to be careful about the films I choose to do.
At heart, we believe that the films that work well are the films that do touch people emotionally.
Some films change your life a little.
The physical journey in my films is indicative of the internal journey that my characters take.
A lot of people think I must be weird because of the films I’ve done. I get that.
Awards season is big for me – I love following all the films and who might be nominated.
I don’t want to do films where I’m just there with nothing much to do.
Initially, I didn’t have much knowledge about cinema. But once I started doing good films, precisely after ‘Kaaka Muttai,’ people started respecting me as a performer.
I don’t make romantic films. I make films about human relationships.
It’s not like I have anything against it, I just chose the kind of films that appeal to me, and mindless entertainers don’t often appeal to me.
My mom loved the old black-and-white films.
It is good if newcomers have a theatre background. It helps in films.
The only movie that I would ever even consider retrofitting is the first ‘Jurassic Park,’ which I think would look pretty spectacular in 3D. That’s the only one of my films that I would consider doing in 3D.
I am profoundly fascinated by cruelty, fear, horror and death. My films show my preoccupation with violence, the pathology of violence.
My father was a busy man who would do six to seven films a year.
Films were always a passion for me but it was when I saw ‘Salaam Bombay’ that I decided that it was film direction that I was interested in. That is when I decided I wanted to direct films.
People connect with my films because they are honest and simple.
I have auditioned for a lot of films and at the final stage, I have been told that an established actor is doing the film. This has happened to me a lot of time.
You no more have to come to the city and access a laboratory to make a film. If you have a DSLR and a reasonably powerful laptop, you could be making films anywhere.
I remember loving ‘Braveheart,’ and I still do! It was one of those films my family had on video and we watched over and over again.
People keep saying Balachander discovered me. I differ. He invented me. When a stalwart like him suggests that I act in films, who am I to refuse?
‘Moonlight‘ is a story that hasn’t been told. Whether placed as queer black cinema or urban male cinema, the lack of coming-of-age films featuring people like Chiron and set in places like inner-city Miami is pronounced and unfortunate.
My roommate at Yale University introduced me to the auteur theory of filmmaking. I soon became a big fan of the works of John Ford, Kenji Mizoguchi, Ernst Lubitsch, and Stan Brakhage. I then decided to make my own films!
I did ‘Vice’ with Christian Bale and ‘Foxcatcher’ with Steve Carell – both of those films had significant prosthetic work. You do need to be cognizant of the fact that the material that you’re photographing is not skin.
I think it’s important to do smaller films because I think that’s where a lot of new things are happening.
The buried code of many American films has become: If I kill you, I have won and you have lost. The instinctive ethical code of traditional Hollywood, the code by which characters like James Stewart, John Wayne and Henry Fonda lived, has been lost.
Women-centric films are being made, and they are doing well.
I don’t think films about working class people are sad at all; I think they’re funny and lively and invigorating and warm and generous and full of good things.
I do not think that my life starts and ends with films. I do not use my profession as my identification.
If my films make one more person miserable, I’ll feel I have done my job.
There’s no one out there like Quentin Tarantino. His films have a signature look, and they never just stick to the same kind of story.
While films are a very visual and emotional artistic medium, video games take it one step further into the realm of a unique personal experience.
There aren’t enough good roles for strong women. I wish we had more female writers. Most of the female characters you see in films today are the ‘poor heartbroken girl.’
I’m so sick of independent films being co-opted by Hollywood. You’re making a project that’s small, really personal, and the first thing anyone asks in any meeting is, ‘Who’s in it?’ I’m like, ‘Are you kidding?’
I think Woody Allen is Woody Allen, and no matter where he goes he still makes his Woody Allen films.
I can live without endless television programmes and films just centered around computers. I can sort of live without that.
I have done ‘Mumbai Meri Jaan,’ ‘Oye Lucky! Lucky Oye!;’ they are not comedy. But those roles didn’t stick with people. Comedy films run, even though some of them are bad films. So people see these more.
I don’t plan or schedule my career thinking first I will play a common man, then a police officer, then a superhero. I love good scripts, and I don’t care if I play the main part in it or not. I want to be a part of good films. That’s my dream… ‘Jacobinte Swargarajyam’ was that film for me.
Friends told me not to bother with the silents – they’re jerky, poorly photographed and ludicrously badly acted. But I was immediately struck by the freshness and vitality of these films.
My roots are on the live performing stage, so while I enjoy making films and the other things that I do, when I get on stage, I feel at home; I’m comfortable.
When I first envisioned ‘Funny Games’ in the mid-1990s, it was my intention to have an American audience watch the movie. It is a reaction to a certain American cinema, its violence, its naivety, the way American cinema toys with human beings. In many American films, violence is made consumable.
I was not getting work, even after auditioning for films. So I started working in a studio as a photographer; I assisted a cinematographer for two ads. I was thinking that I will get into photography or cinematography or assist someone. But then the ‘Dangal’ offer came, and I was busy with the auditions.
Fortunately or not, expectations are always high for all my films.
Indigenous people in films, it’s all, like, nose flutes and panpipes and, you know, people talking to ghosts… which I hate.
As I travel the world, it seems that younger people identify me merely with some of the folklore in the ‘Chuck Norris Facts‘ – those hyperbolic sayings that elevate my abilities beyond my capabilities. Others view me in light of the character I played in ‘Walker, Texas Ranger‘ or in one of my 20 tough-guy films.
Life is very, very complicated, and so films should be allowed to be, too.
Different people in different parts of the world can be thinking the same thoughts at the same time. It’s an obsession of mine: that different people in different places are thinking the same thing but for different reasons. I try to make films which connect people.
Audiences like me doing action and comedy. I am a jovial person and have been so from childhood. I like to laugh my way through my work, and that attitude reflects in my roles. Even women hate me doing rona-dhona roles. So I don’t do emotional films.
Artwork, films, TV – it’s always informed my work, no matter what I’m working on.
I do feel bad when my films don’t do well, but I respect audiences’ verdict because they know well which films to support. If they don’t like a film, we should accept it.
I’m reading scripts just like everybody else. Tin cup in hand, knocking on doors, trying to get a job. It’s tough. They don’t make as many films these days, and there’s a lot of guys that are fighting for jobs.
I grew up watching Keira Knightley films nonstop, and I always admired period dramas and just everything that goes into it.
Those films that really speak to the primal fear that we, as human beings, have about the unknown have always intrigued me. That’s the really scary thing, not the slasher, macabre movies. It’s the ones that deal with the inner fear: the unknown realms and the mysticisms that are scary.
The films I’ve done with all my heart have gone on to become huge hits. When I set out to do a ‘mass masala’ intending to please B and C centres, it bombs.
In Telugu filmdom, audiences like to see their hero dance, fight and play a larger-than-life character. It’s precisely why most of our commercial films do extremely well and get remade too.
I can not watch either of the ‘Paranormal‘ films alone.
TV isn’t like films; you can’t rest on your laurels.
I want make more records with my sister. I want to go on the road. I want to tour around the world. I want to continue to make great films and work with incredible directors that I respect and look up to.
I’m seeing a guy now who has nothing to do with films. It’s so much nicer with somebody who isn’t an actor. Two crazy people in one house would be too much. It’s better there’s one crazy person, and one nice person who looks after that crazy person.
But short films are not inferior, just different. I think the short gives a freedom to film-makers. What’s appealing is that you don’t have as much responsibility for storytelling and plot. They can be more like a portrait, or a poem.
If everyone worked with wide-angle lenses, I’d shoot all my films in 75mm, because I believe very strongly in the possibilities of the 75mm.
In documentary films, the most difficult thing to achieve is to make something complex appear simple.
Some of the greatest films and television have only been seen by the people that make them. And some of the greatest music is only heard by the people who make it.
The joy of tasting different cultures is it gives you a broad perspective, and you don’t judge people from stereotypical characters you see in films.
I’m shy by nature and don’t like talking about myself, and would let my films do the talking.
Directing films is incredibly exciting to me.
I still, by and large, make low-budget Australian films.
I challenge the idea that films about rich people are escapism and films about working class people are dour and sad. I find the opposite‘s the case.
I think the older that I’m getting, the more I’m understand what a privileged job I have, and what an opportunity I have. Now I’m directing films and I’m getting my first movie in America off the ground, and you start to understand how the system really works.
All my cop/gangster dramas have been spaced out, but somewhere, the films in which I played the bad guy were extremely successful, so people are under the impression that I play only such roles. I call it selective amnesia.
We have always wanted to give back to cinema, and we couldn’t possibly think of a better way to do that than facilitate films which we believe will make Malayalam cinema proud.
My taste in watching things runs from dramas and low-budget films to high-end fantasy/science fiction.
You’ll see more violence in any television crime series than you will in my films… Art is there to have a stimulating effect, if it earns its name. You have to be honest, that’s the only thing.
I must stick with Chinese language films.
Everyone wants to do only those films which they find interesting. That is the way the industry works.
I am blessed to have worked in big-budget films at an early stage of my career.
You can tell so much about somebody by the films they make, and it’s only while I approach this do I now realize how much of the filmmaker you can see in their films.
‘Taxi Driver‘ is one of those films that is groundbreaking in how much you’re inside this character’s head. It uses voice-over in a revolutionary way where the audience is invited as a co-conspirator to the whole story line.
For seven years, I made films in the cinema verite tradition – photographing what was happening without manipulating it. Then I realised I wanted to make things happen for myself, through feature films.
I really like conducting my music in concerts because I’m convinced it’s not just for films; it has its own life. It can live far away from the images of the movie.
You just have to ensure that you make good films because audiences today have become picky and smart, and rightfully so.
The way Nolan looks at things is just amazing. It can be easily seen in all his films. I was just watching his videos on how he came up with the screenplay of ‘Memento,’ and it’s just extraordinary. It just opens up your mind.
I like watching films when I don’t know anything about the people.
What you write sets the visual style for the film. But you have to compromise your style in your first few films before people let you do what you want to do.
They say an elephant never forgets. Well, you are not an elephant. Take notes, constantly. Save interesting thoughts, quotations, films, technologies… the medium doesn’t matter, so long as it inspires you.
Theatre is where my heart is. It’s where I can do my best work. And even if I do films and TV, that’s what I want to come back to.
I just don’t see very many films. Because I make them.
I grew up watching his movies; I know everyone did, but I really feel that a lot of my formative years were informed by Woody Allen films.
The process of making natural history films is to try to prevent the animal knowing you are there, so you get glimpses of a non-human world, and that is a transporting thing.
Perhaps I am old-fashioned, but black and white films still hold an affectionate place in my heart; they have an incomparable mystique and mood.
I like the opportunity to make films.
Shah Rukh Khan started his career with television, and now he is a superstar. You can’t generalise and say that TV actors can’t make it to films.
Julia Roberts most definitely would play me in the film of my life. Not just because of the hair but because she has all sides to her personality come through in films that I could just imagine her playing my crazy self so well.
All of the characters in my films, they share one commonality. It doesn’t matter whether they are good or bad, it doesn’t matter whether they are smart or stupid, these characters all take responsibility for their own behavior. I’m much the same.
I’ve been lucky. Massy songs like ‘Bambai se aaya mera dost’ from one of my earliest films and ‘Tu ne maari entry’ have been specially successful for me. I am blessed.
I’m not very eager to sit and look at my films all the time.
Growing up, I loved films like ‘A Streetcar Named Desire’ and ‘On the Waterfront‘ and became a huge fan of Marlon Brando.
I believe in 3D for certain kinds of films. I certainly believe in using 3D for all things in animation because animation has such clarity and so much depth of focus. It worked great with ‘Avatar’ because 70 percent of that film is animated.
I like old Disney films that have an edge to them.
I’ve acted in Hindi, English, Tamil and Telugu films.
It was a wonderful experience working with Nagarjuna sir. I mean, I never expected this to happen. For me, who watched his films standing in a queue at theatres, and now sharing the screen with him is a huge thing.
Graphic novels are all about fantasies. Superman and Batman started it. It’s like a reaction to environment around you. You desire to do things in comic books or films what you can’t do in real life.
To me, ‘Educating Rita’ is the most perfect performance I could give of a character who was as far away from me as you could possibly get and of all the films I have ever been in, I think it may be the one I am most proud of.
I think it’s kind of odd that ‘This Old Road’ was the first video I ever did. Because of all of the work I had done in films and everything, you’d think I would have done a video before that.
I didn’t fall in love with acting until I did a few films. Now, I couldn’t live without it.
My films play only in Bengal, and my audience is the educated middle class in the cities and small towns. They also play in Bombay, Madras and Delhi where there is a Bengali population.
Personally, I can’t stand violence. In any standard American mainstream movie, there’s 20 times more violence than in any one of my films, so I don’t know why those directors aren’t asked why they’re such specialists for violence.
Entertainment came out of this thing called a television, and it was gray. Most of the films that we saw at the cinema were black and white. It was a gray world. And music somehow was in color.
I’m not saying that it’s wrong to make huge Hollywood films but it’s just a different kind of feeling, a different sort of pleasure.
Even when I was working in 30 films a year I was doing 20 plays a month.
I’m not sure it’s affection for Australian or New Zealand films or not. I think it’s just that there’s something about ‘Wilderpeople’ that has really struck a chord.
See, ‘A Time to Kill’ was the one I got famous off of. Big ka-boom, over one weekend. After that, I did films that I really wanted to do.
More and more people are seeing the films on computers – lousy sound, lousy picture – and they think they’ve seen the film, but they really haven’t.
Tyler Perry‘s brand is faith, family and this whole thing that I’ve built, while my company, 34th Street Films, is like Disney’s Touchstone. We can do anything. People don’t know what to expect from me yet.
I thought about how I’d play a vampire for awhile because I grew up watching vampire films and reading books.
I can watch films and say how technically beautiful they are, but I’m not impressed by any technicality.
I let it go. I have not looked at the ‘Star Wars’ films, and that’s absolutely true.
In the ’80s, when I was watching Bond films in the cinemas, Roger Moore was the man. I’ll always have a soft spot for him. His Bond films were light-hearted and silly as well as action-packed. For me, this spoke volumes. It meant that, someday, maybe someone like me with a whacky sense of humour could be James Bond.
This was in ’79. I got pretty restless there, sitting around with a lot of people sitting around smoking cigarettes and talking about films, but nobody really doing anything.
I am very emotional, and I get really upset when any of my films flop. I also get hurt over silly things. That is the way I am; I can’t help it.
I was called the ‘Ugly Duckling’ of Hindi films because of my dark complexion and south Indian features.
It is a humbling experience to work with Duttsaab and Amitji, who was my dad’s costar in so many films.
In Tim’s films, more than most, if you miss the tone, you don’t get the film.
When I see good films not doing well, irrespective of my role being appreciated or not, I have a problem because then the producer who has made a loss will never believe in investing in good cinema.
I’m happy that all my films are different from one another.
I had pictured journalism as I’d seen it in the most ennobling films, where the reporter battles for the truth, propelled by conviction, and is triumphant. There are journalists who fit that ideal.
My beliefs encompass all religions. But I never show my religious inclination in my films. My characters have dark sides; they aren’t the god-fearing characters. It wasn’t a conscious decision. I’m a very lazy and emotional person who connects with the common man.
Stanley Kubrick, I had been told, hates interviews. It’s hard to know what to expect of the man if you’ve only seen his films. One senses in those films painstaking craftsmanship, a furious intellect at work, a single-minded devotion.
Though I have worked in Bhojpuri films and had been introduced to the culture of the area, it was on visiting that region that I came to know that a lot needs to be done to improve the living conditions, and an initiative has already been made with the help of the Pardesiya Kala Sangam and Jagriti, both NGOs.
My father Arun Ahuja was an actor, and he did films as a hero.
I am very romantic. Given a choice, I’d do only romantic films!
I think there’s escapist moviemaking, and we want to be captivated and taken away. If it’s done right, you can craft an incredible film. There have been superhero films that I think are brilliant pieces of art.
I remember my first scene with Alan Rickman, and I was anxious because he is a slight ‘method‘ actor; as soon as he is in his cloak, he walks and talks like Snape – it is quite terrifying. But I really wanted to talk to him because ‘Robin Hood‘ was one of my favourite films.
I have zero interest in performing in films to try to convey any kind of message. My job is to be entertaining. There’s a very different point of view about messages in films in Europe than there is in the States. Audiences rebel because they feel that they are being preached to.
To get into the process of doing back-to-back films, it takes getting a little used to.
My purpose is to make films that will help people to live, even if they sometimes cause unhappiness.
Do what you love. I’ve seen so many people through the years calculate and speculate on what films to do in order ‘to make it.’ And every time those projects crash and burn.
Why should I make films for some intelligent people?
We need less perfect but more free films.
I think I am kind of put on this Earth to speak of being between worlds in my films.
Showtime has given new, young filmmakers – black, white, across the board – an opportunity to make films, as well as actors who want to cross over into directing.
I just like the comic book sensibility. If I can turn them into films and TV series, that’s just icing on the cake.
I’m what you call a good, old-fashioned working actor who has had delusions of grandeur for my entire career and has known what I want to do, but there’s a lot going on out there. There are a lot fewer films being made, and there’s a lot of competition.
During the war, I saw many films that made me fall in love with the cinema.
Stars work because of familiarity. They fill theatres because audiences know who they are. There is a brand equity. But there are films strong enough to not need stars, or films that should not be made with stars at all, where only fresh faces will do. So I make the decisions accordingly.
I went to NYU thinking I was going to make a ‘Die Hard‘ sequel, or maybe action and genre films for the studios, but I ended up falling in love with personal cinema.
I am born and brought up in Mumbai. I have grown up watching Hindi films. So I belong here, I feel.
I chose films made by people I wanted to work with, about subject matter I thought was intriguing.
All of us have our individual curses, something that we are uncomfortable with and something that we have to deal with, like me making horror films, perhaps.
People in my family don’t watch films that much.
Being a kid growing up with Kurosawa films and watching Sergio Leone movies just made me love what it could do to you, and how it could influence you – make you dream.
I did my graduation in hospitality in Jaipur. When I was working, I started getting offers in modeling and did a few South films.
There are still things technically about films that I think are a mystery to me and I want to remain a mystery. I don’t particularly want to know what everyone’s job is because I’ve got lines to learn.
These actors who were in ‘Dope‘ are the actors I want to continue to collaborate and make films with from here on out.
That’s the beauty of short films; their strength lies in delivering a message creatively and simply.
In the last ten years of watching films I have found that some of the foreign films I saw affected me most. One American film that stands out for me for its workmanship and artistry is ‘Ratatouille.’ It was an astonishing effort in filmmaking.
‘Once Upon A Time In America’ is one of the cleverest films of all time, because you can get out of it whatever you want to get out of it.
I began to feel that the drama of the truth that is in the moment and in the past is richer and more interesting than the drama of Hollywood movies. So I began looking at documentary films.
One of the reasons I do like ‘Cult’ is that it plays along the same vibe as the movie ‘Seven,’ which I absolutely love. There was a period of cinema in the mid-’90s that I was a huge fan of, with ‘Heat’ and ‘Seven’ and the Tarantino era. If I’ve ever been fanatical, it was about those films, back in the day.
I’ve done films where we don’t rehearse, and I’ve done films where we heavily rehearse. I like rehearsals.
Sometimes it’s more difficult to do very simple, low-key films.
More than Korean films and series, technology helped us share our culture.
I don’t consider any film of mine bad. I give all my films the importance they deserve. I look at all my roles with the same kind of seriousness.
Nobody will tell you that you’re typecast until your films aren’t working; if it’s working, they’ll call it your ‘zone.’
The choreography in films is completely different. I find it easier when I am asked to dance to classical music, but it’s a different ball game altogether.
I’m always looking for films, but the horror scripts that I get tend to be very repetitive and often not that interesting.
Many of my favorite films, if someone were to tell me simply what they’re about, I probably wouldn’t be that interested. Plot often has so little to do with what’s at the heart of a film.
I think it is very important that films make people look at what they’ve forgotten.
I have worked in Telugu films. I found Bengali easier and sweeter than Telugu.
I eventually want to do writing on all the films, but not necessarily to be the writer. Writing is a painful, painful thing; it really is.
People want a story – and my horror films have never been about only ghosts and spirits. They have their share of love, hatred, jealousy and complexity of relationships involved.
You create a work of art. You do not know whether it will get public sanction. Sometimes outstanding films do no business, and sometimes films which are not so good work.
I don’t plan my roles or my films.
This is how I feel about horror films: there’s enough scary things that happen in day-to-day life. Sometimes just going and getting the mail is scary, when you open your bills. And so, sometimes I feel like scary movies are just tapping into those anxieties and magnifying them.
My fans are there because of my work, because of the films that I did. They are my assets.
With Vietnam, the Iraq War, so many American films about war are almost always from the American point of view. You almost never have a Middle Eastern character by name with a story.
I made three films with Boris Karloff. He was absolutely wonderful.
Like it or not, I am part of the pop culture of films in Hollywood.
What is attempted in these film is of course a synthesis. But it can be seen by someone who has his feet in both cultures. Someone who will bring to bear on the films involvement and detachment in equal measure.
Usually people like to categorise artists. With my films, I categorise people: if I know which one of my movies you like, I can tell which kind of a person you are.
I don’t see scarey films. I certainly wouldn’t go see my films.
‘The Sound of Music’ is one of my favourite old musical films.
I don’t really look like people in films; I look like people in paintings.
