Best Director Quotes to Inspire, Uplift & Motivate You Every Day

“Sometimes the director will want you to write about the character, sometimes he'll want you to live in the location that the character is from or something like that, but I don't usually make a lot of notes or anything like that.”

“Look, a lot of directors were actors, even if they were unsuccessful actors which I think is helpful. I think it's a really helpful thing for a director to have experienced that. It helps you know how to talk to actors and how to get what you need from them.”

“I prefer to be a director and a narrator rather than a writer.”

“It is always a learning experience to work with director Jagdeep Sidhu.”

“I'm a reader. I found out that, whether you're a studio head or a director, you must read your own material. You can't rely on readers.”

“When I did my first film, I didn't have formal training; I didn't work under any director. I really didn't know how to make a film.”

“The relationship between an actor and a director is like a love story between a man and a woman. I'm sure sometimes I'm the woman.”

“When you are doing stand-up comedy, you are the writer, producer, director, sometimes bouncer.”

“I didn't know you had to do so much to be a director. I thought, 'I can do it. I can write a treatment.' I didn't know about shot lists.”

“As a director, I start with the visual.”

“Every director has his own syntax, his own grammar, his own words.”

“The director sent for me for Tarzan. I climbed the tree and walked out on a limb. The next day I was told I was an actor.”

“Midway, when I was working full-fledged on TV, I realised I was loving it. I didn't have a manger, or anyone promoting me. I never went to ask for work, it came to me. I never asked for it, and it's not an ego thing. I thought if any director find me fit, he or she will offer it to me.”

“Getting into Sundance is such a big platform for a director.”

“Finally, 'Vennila Kabadi Kuzhu' happened. The director had doubts if a city-bred, fair-looking boy would fit the role of a village kabbadi player.”

“In a career, when you hit 40 and you've done a lot of this and that, you want to try some new things. I feel like that as a director, too, from one film to the other.”

“Needless to say, when I work on a film, it's mostly just me alone in my room just waiting to present the music to the director - and either he likes it or not.”

“During 'Buniyaad' we were young students and were lucky to have a director like Mr. Sippy. He taught us like parents teach their children.”

“The director is the one who tells the story.”

“John Parsons, the gay art director at 'Vogue,' really started my career.”

“I know as a director I hit it out of the park sometimes, and sometimes we haven't, and that's kind of the way art goes. You just have to be willing to take the 'failures' and learn from them, make the best of them.”

“Film is shot in fragments, and the same moments can be shot again and again until the director is satisfied.”

“Ron Howard is just a funny legacy director. As a film nerd, he's kind of a funny person to valorize.”

“As a screenwriter, you always have frustrations. It's just the nature of the job, and you have to live with it. Your vision is not going to be the same as the director's vision. It doesn't mean one is better or worse; it means they're different.”

“You have to have a great director to make a great movie.”

“I would like - either as an actor, or producer or even director - to do something sci-fi or action-related. I like sci-fi, always have, 'Star Trek' and 'Star Wars' and all that stuff.”

“I am a director's actor. I love the environment of the set, I want to be there and I try to understand what or how the character would respond to certain situations.”

“I don't think a director should have any kids. I don't even think it's good for your physical health. Even guys in their 30s look exhausted because directors never get enough sleep. What I do is stressful enough.”

“I particularly relate to the films of Mikio Naruse and Shinichi Kamoshita, a person whose work I watched very much as a child, a director of family dramas for television.”

“Just having more days of being the director on the ground, that's been invaluable.”

“Regarding the responsibility that a director has to society, first of all, there are ratings. There's freedom to make films, and freedom to watch them or not. It's not like I take those films to a school and force kids to watch them.”

“When I can see things through the lens of the director, it's like being able to see the whole puzzle - it's not just about my role, but the whole script.”

“I like a director who is very observant and is watching what I'm doing and noticing what I'm doing but is giving me time to figure it out. They don't jump right in and give you a note before you've had time to really search on your own with how to do a scene. I like a director that encourages me to be playful.”

“I don't really know what I'm doing, to be honest. I come up with things, and maybe it works, and maybe it doesn't, and I try to learn from my castmates and director and from everyone.”

“For me, each film, each script is like a little journey in itself, and I'm reinventing the wheel. It's like, 'How do I make this film?' That's part of the pleasure, and that's why I'm not a normal professional director.”

“TV, it's a director's medium, and they wanna make it look interesting. To be rehearsing mostly for the sake of where you're standing so they can do the lighting, that's what I don't like.”

“It wasn't until many years after 'The Waltons' when I had gone back to theater that I had the opportunity to take on a role within a theater company as a writer and director. I found to my surprise that I really enjoyed it as well.”

“I think the most important thing for an actor is reading the script and trying to figure out if you can play that character well. The last thing on my mind is if the director made good movies previously. It's not my job to know if that director's last movie was any good - it's my job to know if I can play the role.”

“I always dreamt of being a director.”

“But I don't think of myself as a foreigner or a Frenchman! I just think of myself as a director.”

“What is a good script without a good director or a good director without a good actor?”

“All you can really do as director is sort of set a tone.”

“It was when I was shooting for a Telugu film in Hyderabad when director Meher Ramesh approached me for 'Veera Kannadiga.' I was game to explore a new language and said yes.”

“The way I see it, when I go out as an actor, it should be on a type of film I'm never going to do as a director.”

“I have always been a director at heart.”

“I think that, again, filmmaking is the director's medium in the end, and the best thing a producer can do is stay out of the way and support the director one hundred percent.”

“I have worked in films where we just put on the make-up and go in for a shoot without any discussions and even a talk with the director.”

“I've tried to stay out of the frame more as a director.”

“I never know going in if I've even got a movie to make. Once you start making a film, you hope there's going to be enough material! My job as a director is always to push for more.”

“I didn't plan to be a director until I was 35. For years I wanted to do anything but!”

“A movie like Mercury' is a once in a generation opportunity for me. It doesn't come easily to a music director and I am privileged to have gotten this opportunity.”

“A game director, in my mind, is somebody who makes everybody on the team miserable for the duration of the project.”

“As a film director and as film actors, you get used to a certain rhythm that's slow. But with TV, it's hurry, hurry, hurry, hurry, hurry. It's a different pace.”

“I love the process of making a movie so much as an actor that I can only imagine I would love the process of being the director.”

“I'm not a great director or an auteur; I'm an ensemble director. I do think I can get wonderful performances out of actors.”

“My very first news director said to me that it's better to be hated than to have viewers be neutral.”

“Whether it's t-shirt and jeans or full monster suit, I'm still an actor underneath it all, and a good director is going to know that.”

“I always wanted to be a director. And I make films that I like.”

“I feel like this is the way I was meant to interact with acting. Which is as a director, and helping, working with actors to find their way. Facilitating their performances is so satisfying for me.”

“I believe 'Sonchiriya' is a film that will be recalled with much pride and respect for many years from now. We all worked very hard to make it a special work, and the director Abhishek Sir is a genius.”

“Realistic non-commercial films offer you a lot more liberty as a director than a usual film.”

“As a filmmaker and film student, I think it's really interesting to hear what a director did and how they figured out how to do things.”

“I must say that Dhanush wears the hat of director and actor pretty seamlessly.”

“The director is as good as the actor and vice versa.”

“Everybody that's on a set - from the director to the grips to the electricians - it's all about problem solving. So, as empowered as you can make everybody feel, that's really important.”

“I don't have a favorite process. My favorite process is the right process for the person I am working with. I can fit in any process as long as the director respects who I am and doesn't try to put me in a situation to get something out of me - if I can give it without that situation.”

“Sometimes you get the luxury of having a script for a really long time, and you can get to talk with the director or the producers, and evolve with the role.”

“'Nuvvla Nenila' is an out and out love entertainer. The screenplay of the film is very good and director Nakkina Trinadha Rao has handled the film superbly.”

“You can have an amazing director and terrible script, and the film's not going to be great. But if you have the most incredible script and an okay director, you could still get a really good film.”

“Richard Marquand, on Jedi, was very much an actor's director.”

“I feel like the books were just written like a movie. You read it and you can just kind of see everything. Before I went in to read with the director, I read the first book and I loved it. I didn't realize how good the writing was. And then I went in and read with Gary Ross, and that was it.”

“I write music to please myself. Hopefully the director's enjoying it too.”

“You pick projects for the part, the director, and the script. I just want to do different, interesting stuff.”

“A director really doesn't deal with performance that much, especially if you deal with great actors. Their work is the performance. What you're helping them with is all the stuff they cannot be in control of.”

“I'm not the kind of director who imposes his processes on everybody else.”

“The worst is when I talk myself into something. Sometimes you take things because you want to work with a certain actor, or you want to work with a director, even if the script or the part's not that great.”

“You can't always expect to work with a director who guarantees success.”

“The writer and the director are ultimately responsible for what is portrayed and glorified in a film. Then comes the producer.”

“The relationship between a director and an editor in documentaries is so important.”

“Films are a director's medium. We're all stemming from the director.”

“Jon Favreau is such a wonderful director.”

“I don't think I could have made a good movie out of 'Thor 2' because I wasn't the right director. And I don't think I would have been in the running for 'Wonder Woman' as a result. And that's one of the reasons why I'm glad I didn't do it.”

“There is often a great disparity between a director's personal style and the movies he makes.”

“I'd done some acting and I didn't like being told what to do by the director, the structure of it.”

“I have hardly ever worked with the same director twice. But when you have worked with a director before, you understand his behavior.”

“Spending time with Mexican-born writer and director Alejandro Gonzalez Inarritu, you'd never guess that he's the filmmaker behind a series of movies known as the 'Death Trilogy.' The way he dotes on his children and talks about his wife makes it clear that he has a crackling passion for life.”

“Were I not married to the director, I'm not sure I'd know anything about the 'Underworld' sequel.”

“A director just pushes them a little this way or that way.”

“Puri Sir is a fantastic director.”

“The director Vetri Raman proves, yet again, why Tamil film industry is a forward-thinking industry in the country today, producing gems year after year.”

“The magic doesn't come from within the director's mind, it comes from within the hearts of the actors.”

“I'm never happy with the work I put in. No. I need to be told by my director and people around me that it is fine. Otherwise, I'll even go, like, 'One more take.'”

“Theater is very much the world I'd like to get back to, particularly in New York, both as an actor and director.”

“I would like to have a managerial career as a director.”

“If you're an actor, you have to look spiffing. But as the director, you don't need to look so glamorous.”

“I don't want people saying, 'Should we get a female director?' I want to hear, 'Should we get a great director for this movie?'”

“I always like being a director in terms of giving acting notes and punching up on the fly.”

“I started as a director very young and fell into acting.”

“TV is more the director's medium. You can be edited right out.”

“Working with my mother is unlike working with any other director.”