Directing is a unique endeavor where you are in charge of so many people. As a writer, it is sort of the opposite.
‐‐ Drew Goddard
Directing is a very long process, and I have to be in love with it if I want to give up two years of my life and live with it from beginning to end!
‐‐ Danielle Harris
Directing is all tied up with childhood loneliness. It's such an odd thing to end up doing.
‐‐ Paul Greengrass
Directing is creating a whole. You're able to combine different elements and create a film that is unique and true to your vision.
‐‐ Tim Robbins
Directing is definitely something that is in my life for keeps, and the more I do it, the more I realize how much I want to learn and how much I have to give. And it kind of bolsters my acting - it enhances it in a really wonderful way that I wasn't expecting.
‐‐ Carrie Preston
Directing is genderless. The only thing... I love men. I'm not being mean to them, but they can't hear you. I don't have a husband, and so I'm not really attuned to it, but I didn't know that they could not really hear you. Like, I'm talking, and they just walk away.
‐‐ Lori Petty
Directing is like looking at the stars on a cloudless night. You get away from all light sources, and you look up, and you see 50 points of light. And a minute later 100 and another minute later 1,000 and then 10,000. And then this swirling gigantic carpet above you, and somehow it all seems to connect.
‐‐ Russell Crowe
Directing is like meeting a woman. You don't know her, but something strikes you, and then you just have to go into it.
‐‐ Maximilian Schell
Directing is more what I would like to get into eventually. Frankly, I feel like it would be a waste if I didn't because I've spent so much time on film sets, and I know how they work, and I love them, and I love leading them. I would like to do that as a director definitely.
‐‐ Daniel Radcliffe
Directing is mystifying. It's a long, long, skid on an icy road, and you do the best you can trying to stay on the road... If you're still here when you come out of the spin, it's a relief. But you've got to have the terror if you're going to do anything worthwhile.
‐‐ Mike Nichols
Directing is not a job. It's more like a career. Which is great!
‐‐ Michael Bay
Directing is not on my agenda, but writing is. I want to write everything from action, superhero films to quiet dramas, smaller films.
‐‐ David Dastmalchian
Directing is physically exciting because there's a ticking clock, you're working with people, it's very social, it's very enjoyable.
‐‐ Alan Ball
Directing is really exciting. In the end, it's more fun to be the painter than the paint.
‐‐ George Clooney
Directing is really my favorite thing to do, but if I never directed again, I'd be okay if all the work I did was good.
‐‐ Jeff Garlin
Directing is so interesting. You know, it just sort of encompasses everything that you see, that you know, that you've felt, that you have observed.
‐‐ Barbra Streisand
Directing is something I always wanted to do. I started when I was 13 directing scenes in high school and then plays in college with my theatre company.
‐‐ David Schwimmer
Directing is something I've sort of always felt like I'd like to do at one point, and I thought the best way to start it is to write something myself or with someone and I'd go from there. My own material.
‐‐ Luke Evans
Directing is the best job going. I don't understand why everybody doesn't want to direct. It's an absolutely fascinating combination of skills required and puzzles set on every level - emotional and practical and technical. It calls up on such a wide variety of skills. I find it completely absorbing. I just love the whole process.
‐‐ Hugh Laurie
Directing is the last frontier for women in the movie business. We are studio heads, we are producers and we are writers, but we are not directors in any numbers.
‐‐ Lynda Obst
Directing is the ultimate way to bring together all the art forms I've been involved with over the years.
‐‐ Xander Berkeley
Directing is too hard, it takes too much time, and it doesn't pay very well.
‐‐ Harrison Ford
Directing is very close to choreography; you deal with space, time, emotions, lighting, making beautiful images.
‐‐ Benjamin Millepied
Directing is: you're overwhelmed the whole time. Your mind never stops. If you care about it. You wake up in the morning and you begin thinking about it and then you go to sleep at night and you're still thinking about it.
‐‐ Campbell Scott
Directing Marilyn Monroe was like directing Lassie. You needed fourteen takes to get each one of them right.
‐‐ Otto Preminger
Directing movies is the best job there is, that's all. I can hardly say a word after that. It's just a great job.
‐‐ Nora Ephron
Directing my own writing, I see that I talk way too much, and everything can happen much sooner, with much less said about it.
‐‐ Christopher McQuarrie
Directing myself definitely made me a better actor. And, you know, I think actors have the best track record when they turn to directing. Writers, too. I knew how to direct actors because I've been there and I know what I like.
‐‐ Matt Dillon
Directing non-actors is difficult. Directing actors in a foreign language is even more difficult. Directing non-actors in a language that you yourself don't understand is the craziest thing you can possibly think of.
‐‐ Alejandro Gonzalez Inarritu
Directing plays lacked the immediacy and connection to real world events that journalism offered; journalism lacked the drama, theatricality and subjective storytelling of theater. It wasn't until I had the idea of making a documentary film about the 1992 presidential campaign that these two passions came together in 'The War Room.'
‐‐ R. J. Cutler
Directing remains very psychological, and it takes a lot of time and reflection. When you're an actor, it takes less time, and you can express yourself physically.
‐‐ Guillaume Canet
Directing takes a lot of time.
‐‐ Jeff Bridges
Directing talent is very nebulous. You know, it's not in front of you like an actor's performance.
‐‐ Michael Douglas
Directing television is really hard - it's so fast. You shoot an hour show in seven days.
‐‐ Steve Buscemi
Directing 'The Office' is kind of like someone going, 'Would you like to drive my Lamborghini?' And I'm like 'Yes, I would like to drive your Lamborghini. That sounds like fun.'
‐‐ Jason Reitman
Directing was a great experience, but it's terrifying to have the responsibility of carving up the other actors' performances.
‐‐ John Krasinski
Directing was a natural thing for me. Actually, it was far less stressful directing than being the lead actor. I was able to have my input in all aspects of it.
‐‐ Michael Jai White
Directing was easy for me because I was a writer director and did all my directing when I wrote the screenplay.
‐‐ Preston Sturges
Directing, what little I know, is as much knowing when to step in as when to step out.
‐‐ Robert Lorenz
Directing 'When You Find Me' was one of the most creatively rewarding endeavors of my career.
‐‐ Bryce Dallas Howard
Directing, writing, producing and starring is just too tough.
‐‐ Stephen Chow
Directing your first film is like showing up to the field trip in seventh grade, getting on the bus, and making an announcement, 'So today I'm driving the bus.' And everybody's like, 'What?' And you're like, 'I'm gonna drive the bus.' And they're like, 'But you don't know how to drive the bus.'
‐‐ Mike Birbiglia
Direction is the most invisible part of the theatrical art. You don't see it.
‐‐ Terry Teachout
Directions are instructions given to explain how. Direction is a vision offered to explain why.
‐‐ Simon Sinek
Directly after Rock Hudson's death came the fears that gay writers and actors and directors would be denied jobs; who knew if they would live long enough to finish a feature film or television series? And would the unions force directors to give blood tests and ban actors who tested positive?
‐‐ Michael Shnayerson
Directly after the show people might have responded better to it, but who really knows. It did what it did and while it seems like a failure to most but it was a success for me and has given me so many opportunities.
‐‐ Justin Guarini
Director Gary Ross has created an adaptation that is faithful in both narrative and theme, but he's also brought a rich and powerful vision of Panem, its brutality and excesses, to the film as well. His world building's fantastic, whether it be the Seam or the Capitol.
‐‐ Suzanne Collins
Director of any film is very important, and an actor has to leave himself in his hands to mould.
‐‐ Leander Paes
Directors and producers were afraid of a Dumont actor while at the same time they admired him.
‐‐ Leon Askin
Directors and writers have a lot of stress as well, because they have people they answer to.
‐‐ Alexis Bledel