If you track something like a political campaign and parcel out what's being communicated in a literal and narrative sense, and what's being communicated by means of emotional and symbolic language, you might find that it's the latter elements that absolutely dominate and move people. It makes me want to take that language and expose it.
Bennett Miller
I think all good sports movies aren't really about sports.
I think Will Ferrell is probably completely evil, the darkest of them all. He is known among comics as the dark knight. An evil, evil man and a dangerous soul.
I don't like sensationalizing events. Instead of making waves, I want to make everything settle, so we can see to the bottom of things.
Kenny Lonergan, as a filmmaker, doesn't tell stories so much as he observes them, which is to say, his films don't come pre-digested. You have to bring your own enzymes. It's a more gripping and challenging experience.
If I had a dozen lives, one of them would involve really getting off the rails in India, heavy into meditation.
If you talk to anybody, among the first things you'll hear is, 'Steve Carell is the nicest guy in the world.' And he is. 'Steve Carell is the greatest guy to work with.' And he is. But all of that belies other aspects that are as true with him.
Every film requires a different process. You learn about these particular actors and the particular chemistry between these actors. Recognizing when you don't need to shoot a scene because it's going to be cut anyway.
When I learned a little bit about du Pont and a little bit about Mark Schultz, I was attracted to the notion that these incredibly different people found each other and seemed, for a moment, to be the answer that each was looking for.
I don't want to sound too spiritual, but when you are true to yourself and follow through with things that connect with you meaningfully, somehow things fall into place.
I think baseball represents something closer to our experience. There's no clock in baseball; it's not over until it's over. It's like life in that there are prolonged periods of boredom and monotony, punctuated by intense moments of excitement and sometimes terror.
My nature is to try and look past apparent truths, to pull back layers and understand the psychological motives behind phenomena.
There's really powerful and potentially dominating forces when you make a film that can harm it if you're incapable of orchestrating things.
I think when an actor feels like they're being watched with great sensitivity and a subtle eye and a nose for truthfulness, that has some effect.
I don't know of a filmmaker who does not feel buoyed and lifted when their peers embrace the work.
The one thing I'll say is I was a quiet kid. Much more of an observer than a performer.
I am a tumbleweed. I don't have a company. I don't have a staff. I don't own anything - I've never owned a car or an apartment.
I really tried to get comfortable with the notion of shooting digital on 'Foxcatcher' and just couldn't. I shot many tests and experimented with all sorts of techniques to manipulate it into a place that worked for us, but it just didn't happen.
I like to rehearse. We did a lot of rehearsals for 'Moneyball,' but it is really individual to the actor. It's not like, 'Here is my process, everybody. Fit in.'
Adam Sandler in 'Punch-Drunk Love' is brilliant. Brilliant, brilliant.
Kubrick has a divining rod for the concealed, alienating secrets of characters.
One of the biggest turnoffs is being presented with an idea that's already, to a degree, complete. That's not an adventure, and it's not a learning experience. It's more of a chore. Then you become a technician with taste, as opposed to an explorer and an author.
I like to rehearse to the point we're in the ballpark, and expect that we're only going to get one proper take, more or less.
What I will say - one thing that is attractive about getting a real film made within the studio system is that studio systems, with their marketing and distribution, have real power.
I do have that compulsion to organize moments into a larger thing.
I am attracted to these outsider characters who just don't belong anywhere, and who are operating in worlds they sort of don't fit, coupled with huge ambitions.
You make a movie and you'd like it to be appreciated, respected, embraced.
I think I am missing a gene that most people have to enable them to feel happiness about success and these kind of things.
I think I approach things with an outsider's perspective.
I don't believe in God in the way I often see described by religion.
For me, personally, the value of a film is not determined by a review, but the health of the film is.
A film cannot make it into the culture without the support of critics.
I want to work with performers who really are ready to lose their minds, you know? People who are established and have talent, but who are ready to break new ground and really be cracked open in a new way.
People are attracted to entertainment, for sure, or jokes, excitement and romantically heightened stories that might be false, but are still attractive fantasies.
It's great making a film and having it embraced and seen. I really enjoy that.
Every relationship probably has, at its inception, a hundred things that you could pick on and divert you from it, but the feeling is there. You figure out a way to make it work.
Honestly, my smartest business decision was to never do anything that I didn't love doing.
My business life is really simple. It's like, get check. Put check in bank. Pay rent. I've never bought a stock in my life. I never got caught up in that trip. And the truth is, I don't obsess about money ever.
I think the mind has a way of getting to where it needs to get to. If you are persistent.
I am attracted to anything that does not feel derivative.
You can write ten versions of a scene, and then, on the day, discover that something in the original scene worked. It's hard on writers. Hard on actors, hard on editors, hard on me, hard on the producers, who require patience and confidence. But I can't get to the end without going through this process.
I have a tremendous amount of patience and tolerance when working with people, but if I ever feel the impulse to inhibit myself from doing one more take, or feel a need to apologize to someone for pushing, I know that that relationship isn't gonna last.
I like going into a scene knowing that the script isn't quite finished, that there's something that isn't really going to reveal itself until something spontaneously occurs.
Before I find myself in the middle of a project, I want to make sure it is the kind of thing that keeps me excited for two years. Otherwise, it will be very difficult to push the proverbial rock up the proverbial mountain.
I think in terms of content and subjects and whatever kind of production it dictates. Can I conceive of an idea that would really connect with my personal rhythms and cost a lot of money? I don't gravitate in that direction, but it is possible.
It couldn't be more satisfying to work on something almost anonymously for years, then to have it received affectionately with support.
People without fathers tend to have two predominant characteristics. They tend to believe anything is possible. At the same time there's an anxiety and an unending insecurity. It's a very American thing because back in the past, we lost our fathers or father. The king.
The version of 'Moneyball' I pitched - and we made - is about a guy, Billy Beane, who thinks he's trying to win baseball games. But it's deeper than that.
I definitely have moments in my life where I discovered a film, and the language of the film itself spoke to me in a way, as if someone came up to you and started speaking a language you'd never heard but understood and was able to express things the language you knew could not.
There's always something happening in pretty much every moment of every scene of everything I've ever worked on in longform that's not being expressed or acknowledged.
