I grew up in Texas City, Texas. I didn't know anybody who was a director or whose parents or grandparents were directors. I met somebody from a nearby town one time whose father had been to the moon - it was far more likely to be an astronaut than it was to be a writer or a director.

John Lee Hancock

I got an English degree in college and then went to law school because I didn't know what else to do. I was a lawyer in Houston, Texas. I started writing plays and screenplays, and after about three years of practicing, I decided I would move to Los Angeles and give it a shot.

John Lee Hancock

I grew up in a refinery town in Texas, and we weren't fancy enough to have a McDonald's.

John Lee Hancock

Every time you do a true story - and I've done a few - you have to look in the mirror and say, 'That's close enough. I'm comfortable with this.' You're always going to compress time; you're going to change the order of things. But I don't think you want to tell a big lie. You want to think that you're embracing the truth.

John Lee Hancock

Every director knows it is his job to be manipulative. When you make an edit, you are trying to manipulate.

John Lee Hancock

Every generation comes upon the movie again, and then, invariably, the books have a spike in sales because people want to read more about Mary Poppins.

John Lee Hancock

'Snow White and the Huntsman' was - I came in before they started shooting and basically worked on Charlize Theron's character for the most part. I guess I probably worked four or five weeks on that one and stayed during production a little bit with them.

John Lee Hancock

If America had a motto, it would be pull yourself up by the bootstraps, work harder than the next guy, have a goal and achieve it.

John Lee Hancock

We did not go to that many movies in a theater in the little town I grew up in.

John Lee Hancock

I think that, anybody with a strong will to tell a story, then that is fantastic. I think it's fantastic. I think sometimes people have what I'll call an ulterior motive with a story.

John Lee Hancock

I grew up in Texas City, Texas. I didn't know anybody who was a director or whose parents or grandparents were directors. I met somebody from a nearby town one time whose father had been to the moon - it was far more likely to be an astronaut than it was to be a writer or a director.

John Lee Hancock

I like some time away to recharge the batteries, not only physically but emotionally, so that I get to the point where I'm just dying to direct again, and then that's the right time to do it again.

John Lee Hancock

Many years ago, I was a producer on a movie called 'My Dog Skip.' Willie Morris, the great southern writer, had written the book. We had adapted it and taken 17 years of his life and compressed it into one year.

John Lee Hancock

You set out to tell a good story. You don't do it because there is a deep message involved, because the movie is almost always bad when you do that. Your job No. 1 is for it to be entertaining, and if it's inspiring, that is great, too.

John Lee Hancock

We have the word 'Mc' attached to so many things now, like 'McMansions.' It's become part of our vernacular as something on steroids almost, just bigger and bigger. I think, to a degree, studios have fallen prey to that as well.

John Lee Hancock

A good deed is a good deed.

John Lee Hancock

I just hope, every now and then, the studios still slip one of my movies in.

John Lee Hancock

We felt a responsibility to the McDonald brothers and to Ray Kroc to be as factual as possible. We didn't have a responsibility to make anyone look good or anybody look bad, just to try our best to be honest.

John Lee Hancock

I really don't storyboard unless it's an action sequence of some kind, but I plan carefully.

John Lee Hancock

I remember going to McDonald's for the first time probably when I was in college. And then I remember going and visiting a friend in Wyoming, and he said, 'We're going to do something special. We're going to McDonald's.'

John Lee Hancock

Somebody might say that they always wanted to be a fly-fishing guide in Montana and maybe they'll never get to do that but just by the virtue of having said it out loud, I think there's some power in that.

John Lee Hancock