Film & Filmmaking Quotes

Movie-making is telling a story with the best technology at your disposal.
Tom Hanks

The appeal of cinema lies in the fear of death

I'm a Method actor. I spent years training for the drinking and carousing I had to do in this film.
George Clooney

Success is not something I've wrapped my brain around. If people go to those movies, then yes, that's true, big-time success. If not, it's much ado abo.
Matt Damon

James Caan told me at the end of filming 'Elf' that he had been waiting through the whole film for me to be funny - and I never was.
Will Ferrell

When I start a movie, the first day, I feel like a duck.
Penelope Cruz

Really? Worst film you ever saw. Well, my next one will be better. Hello. Hello.
Ed Wood

You see, the interesting thing about books, as opposed, say, to films, is that it's always just one person encountering the book, it's not an audience, it's one to one.
Paul Auster

I am a cynical optimist. Big opening weekends are like cotton candy. The films you will remember over time are the films that stick in the consciousness of the audience in a good way.
Robert Redford

Every casting director I've met is a woman.

A censor is an expert in cutting remarks. A censor is a man who knows more than he thinks you ought to.

I had known Cole Porter in Hollywood and New York, spent many a warm hour at his home, and met the talented and original people who were drawn to him.

My departure from Hollywood was described as a walk-out. No one understood that I was cracking up.

There is no way you can get people to believe you on screen if they know who you really are through television.
Jack Nicholson

Don't think for a moment that I'm really like any of the characters I've played. I'm not. That's why it's called 'acting'.

I didn't know what types of movies I wanted to do. I want to do things that are different. I want to take my time with each role.

Well, I think every film student goes into film school thinking they want to write and direct their own movies, and they don't realize how much goes into it, and what a process it is.
Alexis Bledel

To grasp the full significance of life is the actor's duty; to interpret it his problem; and to express it his dedication.
James Dean

It's getting ridiculously expensive to insure directors and officers.
Charles King

I always stayed for the first curtain call and people always said, 'Who's that?' But this got me started in acting.

Well, I think one of the main things that you have to think about when acting in the movies is to try not to make the acting show.

I just went into this business for laughs. I guess I don't mind being an actor so much now.

I made about 28 movies, and I think about five of them were good.

Most of the films I've done were ruined in the postproduction, not during filming.

I've been a sports fan all my life, and like most other actors, I'm convinced I could have been a pro athlete if Hollywood hadn't come calling.
Jamie Foxx

When the characters are really alive before their author, the latter does nothing but follow them in their action, in their words, in the situations which they suggest to him.
Luigi Pirandello

My favorite characters are the ones that are the most successful movies.
Christopher Walken

A play should give you something to think about. When I see a play and understand it the first time, then I know it can't be much good.

When you are on assignment, film is the least expensive thing in a very practical sense. Your time, the person's time, turns out to be the most valuable thing.

I love the fact that we play people who are not like us at all and we can just go crazy at work and then be very normal after filming.
Rachel Bilson

Although for some people cinema means something superficial and glamorous, it is something else. I think it is the mirror of the world.
Jeanne Moreau

I don't think know if anything's going to translate anywhere. You're making a movie, you hope it's going to be funny, you can't think about how it's going to go over.
Ben Stiller

There is a comfort zone of knowing where things are going and having characters in place, but the action gets more and more dramatic and is very challenging to describe.
Jerry B. Jenkins

Hollywood is a place where they place you under contract instead of under observation.

But the West of the old times, with its strong characters, its stern battles and its tremendous stretches of loneliness, can never be blotted from my mind.
Buster Keaton

I'm a huge Groucho fan. There were some great comic minds that would transfer into any generation, and Groucho is certainly one of them.

Altman was told they wouldn't do the film with me. He could easily have abandoned me, but he stood by me and really bailed me out.
Tim Robbins

Anybody can direct a picture once they know the fundamentals. Directing is not a mystery, it's not an art. The main thing about directing is: photograph the people's eyes.
John Ford

It's the first time that I've ever had an art show based on a film, but it's a photography collage.
Val Kilmer

Action, reaction, motivation, emotion, all have to come from the characters. Writing a love scene requires the same elements from the writer as any other.

I've got a peculiar weakness for criminals and artists-neither takes life as it is. Any tragic story has to be in conflict with things as they are.
Stanley Kubrick

We've already shot two episodes, and I'm going back soon to shoot a third

I think that I've still not been successful at playing the role of the retired actor, and I'd like to work on that.
Sean Penn

Well, I think that a lot of times when you're working on a film, there aren't really opportunities to get to know all the people you have to work with.
Alexis Bledel

Well, again working strictly to the film, where you had this lovely, lovely land of brightness and color. And everybody is smiling and happy and butterflies flitting around and it was that kind of image that, it was like a dream world, really.
George Martin

Absolutely. You're not laughing at them. You're really laughing with them. There are a lot of jokes in this movie, and they're in on them all.
Peter Farrelly

There's the most resistance to an actor singing. It's like I'm being disloyal to my industry.
Kevin Bacon

As a viewer, the minute I start getting confused, I check out of the movie. Emotionally, I'm severed.

I like it when somebody tells me a story, and I actually really feel that that's becoming like a lost art in American cinema.

I've always thought John Travolta is one of the greatest movie stars Hollywood has ever produced.