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A good director's not sure when he gets on the set what he's going to do.


Elia Kazan

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'A Face in the Crowd' is Elia Kazan's forgotten movie.
PEYTON REED I studied with Strasberg, Elia Kazan. They raised the bar. They weren't easy to please, and they...
MARTIN LANDAU Harrison Ford comes on set, and he's very polite and says, 'Hello' to everyone. He cares...
LIAM HEMSWORTH It's nice to have my mother as someone I can talk to about acting. My dad's a director, so w...
ZOEY DEUTCH Elia Kazan: A Biography
RICHARD SCHICKEL It's never going to get better than working opposite an actor like Jeff Bridges. That's as g...
SAM ELLIOTT As a director, you can't stop a guy if he thinks something's hysterical, because if you do, ...
EVAN GOLDBERG On a professional side, you've got a tough problem to fix, Geoff Miller's going to do it, an...
JACK KEANE Elia Kazan understood my problems. He was able to bring out the very best in me. He gave me credit f...
ETHEL WATERS People talk, 'Oh your father's a misogynist, look what he said about women,' like, on &#...
DONALD TRUMP, JR. He's not anybody's clone. He's Ken Griffey, Jr. As long as he continues to remind himsel...
CHILI DAVIS The thing about a hero, is even when it doesn't look like there's a light at the end of the ...
JOSS WHEDON I don't wilt easily, and a director can't either. He's the captain of the ship and he...
RICKY SCHRODER When I auditioned for my high school band the band director was excited because my father was known ...
WYNTON MARSALIS I trained as an actor with Lee Strasberg, Elia Kazan, and Harold Clurman, and those guys set a very ...
MARTIN LANDAU It's the WWE; it's Vince McMahon's show. He lays out what he wants from you. It's no...
DOLPH ZIGGLER David O. Russell is probably my favorite filmmaker. He's not only a great director, but he's...
ADAM MCKAY He's too short, he's too... tall, he's... just not going to work.
ED WOOD On a film set, for me, there's so much more time to process what's going on than there is on...
TAYLOR SCHILLING My best film composing experience was with Elia Kazan.
ALEX NORTH They've said I'm gay, they've said everyone is gay. I personally don't believe in do...
NICOLE KIDMAN I wouldn't say jamie is an evil genius. I'm not sure he's evil and I'm not sure he&#...
ADAM SAVAGE We are not what we seem. We are more than what we seem. The actor knows that. And because the actor ...
WALLACE SHAWN Fundamentally, footballers don't look around a dressing room and think, 'He's a black pl...
GARY LINEKER Justin Timberlake is everything, and what more could you want in a person? He's funny. He's ...
BRITNEY SPEARS Nick gets carsick if he's not driving - plus, he's basically a walking atlas. He can drive a...
MEGAN MULLALLY Kabir Khan is a director who goes out of his way to make his actors comfortable. He's very chill...
NAWAZUDDIN SIDDIQUI I'm still a big 'Grey's Anatomy' fan.
BROOKE ELLIOTT I used to watch 'Grey's Anatomy' pretty religiously.
ERINN HAYES It's a director's job to tell a story and he's very well versed in telling stories with ...
CUBA GOODING, JR. The director needs to be in command on set because everything crumbles if that's not the case.
KENNETH BRANAGH Mick's not good on his own problems, but he's very good at other people's. He's been...
CHARLIE WATTS I don't follow anything that's said about him much, but the Uwe Boll that I know is just a r...
MICHAEL EKLUND If a fellow isn't thankful for what he's got, he isn't likely to be thankful for what he...
FRANK A. CLARK Sean's a better person when he's directing. He becomes a queen when he's an actor. And h...
ROBIN WRIGHT When he's exactly sure what to do, he can do it. When he's uncertain, he gets tentative.
BILL PARCELLS I don't know what it's like to have a typical father figure. He's not the dad who's ...
TIFFANY TRUMP It's such a pleasant surprise when you come on set and you find someone in charge like Ken Brana...
ANTHONY HOPKINS I want to be a good steward and make sure what's in my heart is what God wants, and then once it...
LAUREN DAIGLE I don't think Flo Rida gets on just any song. If you look at the songs he has done - even The Sa...
OLLY MURS I'm good at what I do, but I wouldn't be so bold and arrogant as to say something disrespect...
LL COOL J Are you taking us to the beach?" - Dan Cahill
JUDE WATSON Your own barometer is all you have to go by, and often what makes a good director is knowing when no...
GARY OLDMAN When he entered the anteroom, two women looked up at him. One was Miss Robertson, the governor's sec...
GEORGE P. ELLIOTT He's not a child but he's childlike, he's not a grown up, he's not a kid, maybe he s...
TOM KENNY What's a good tournament for him? Winning it. He's good enough.
GREG NORMAN The little boy, Spencer Breslin, it was just so great to have a kid on set. He is talented, he's...
CAROLINE DHAVERNAS It's definitely a privilege to be able to do what you love to do; it's not something that ev...
AWKWAFINA My son now is 22 months old, he's been playing since he was 12 months old and he gets standing o...
DICK DALE With Nine Inch Nails, it's all Trent Reznor. So when we get a new record from Nine Inch Nails, i...
ZAKK WYLDE When we worked together for 'Band Baaja Baaraat,' Ranveer used to be very anxious and hyper ...
ANUSHKA SHARMA As an actor you have to bring to the table your creative input. But when a director like Ridley Scot...
CUBA GOODING, JR. What people don't understand is that my dad isn't up on the contemporary music scene. He'...
ALEXA RAY JOEL A man's got to do what a man's got to do. A woman must do what he can't.
BARRY HANNAH I think Americans appreciate that my dad's a genuine guy. He's not gonna manicure every litt...
DONALD TRUMP, JR. It never gets old. Working with somebody like Kevin Hart is rejuvenating in a lot of ways. He's ...
ICE CUBE It's hard enough to just be a good actor. When you're on set, there's everything going a...
JAMES MARSDEN You can play Mozart all you want and pretend that it gives you class, but what is class, you know? C...
JAMES MCBRIDE My father is an amazing guy - he's a total, total patriot... He loves America ... and he says wh...
ERIC TRUMP I support Donald Trump because I believe he's a businessperson that's going to get the econo...
RICK SCOTT I'm not a Trump fan, to put it mildly, but I think there's a power to simplicity. When Trump...
DAN PINK Soderbergh is a very respectable director that manages to have an incredible amount of freedom in a ...
VINCENT CASSEL A good story will keep you wondering about what's happening, what's going on, where does thi...
FEDE ALVAREZ I want to be on the field. It's a better place to talk to the guys. It's a relaxed atmospher...
DON MATTINGLY It looks ancient," - Amy Cahill
JUDE WATSON I don't play video games. My husband does. He plays sometimes the football, and every once in a ...
LAILA ALI The Mormon issue is a real problem in the South; it's a real problem in other parts of the count...
DAN BARTLETT Well, he's not going to get any nicer. He's a genocidal racist maniac. He's one of these...
JASON ISAACS There's a clip where he had someone miming me running around from keyboard to keyboard. Oh dear,...
KEITH EMERSON I went to watch Coldplay in Florida and saw Chris Martin before they went on. He sang 'What Make...
HARRY STYLES What's money? A man is a success if he gets up in the morning and goes to bed at night and in be...
BOB DYLAN Before success comes in any man's life, he's sure to meet with much temporary defeat and, pe...
NAPOLEON HILL I'm not on a slander campaign to ruin Jon Jones publicly. That's not what I set out to do.
DANIEL CORMIER Let's judge a man on what he's done.
BARBARA BUSH If you have a script that's not great, if you have a great director, you can make a great movie,...
MONICA BELLUCCI I have my pride. I'm a director. I'm not going to go and recreate some other director's ...
FEDE ALVAREZ It's a funny thing that when a man hasn't anything on earth to worry about, he goes off and ...
ROBERT FROST With Sean Penn, he wants to be surprised. He doesn't necessarily want what he's written, alt...
DAVID MORSE Defeat doesn't finish a man, quit does. A man is not finished when he's defeated. He's f...
RICHARD M. NIXON When the going gets tough, I'm not always sure what you do. I'm not saying that I know how t...
JOHN MADDEN If you really watch 'The Voice' and follow Adam, he's very ADD. He's kind of one pla...
CHRISTINA GRIMMIE He has a feel for what we want to do (in a game), and he offers good suggestions. He?s always talkin...
BRIAN MCDERMOTT The best time to listen to a politician is when he's on a stump on a street corner in the rain l...
THEODORE WHITE When prose gets too stylized and out of control - and Stein is sometimes a good example - when you d...
RICK MOODY I don't care how I got here. In the books, when you look at it 10 or 20 years from now, it's...
VINCE CARTER I want my job to include a little adventure, a little more of a heightened reality than what I'm...
NATHAN FILLION President Obama clearly cannot run on his record. All he's offering is more of the same. That...
PAUL RYAN The cameraman isn't thinking about whether you're good that day. He's too busy worrying ...
MEREDITH SALENGER I know my brother. Michael, he's not that kind of person. He doesn't do that. That's all...
JACKIE JACKSON I thought he was an interesting central figure, central character, one who is definitely not your ty...
PATRICK WARBURTON Tarantino is the coolest damn guy; he's just so much fun to work with. He might be the best dire...
DAVID CARRADINE God, George Bush makes me want to slash my wrists. He's so embarrassing I have to leave the room...
MARGOT KIDDER If you watch a guy go out on court and have a meltdown, you're not going to think, 'Oh my Go...
JOHN MCENROE My dad loves to be talked about, good or bad. He just loves it. He's not even hearing the conten...
SARAH SILVERMAN When a director is also a writer, everyone on the production looks to him, knowing he gave birth to ...
PETER LANDESMAN I'm having a good time watching Shooter. He's a good kid. He's been a good son to me. He...
JESSI COLTER Jazz is the big brother of the blues. If a guy's playing blues like we play, he's in high sc...
B. B. KING What the devil is the point of surviving, going on living, when it's a drag? But you see, that&#...
ALAN WATTS He's a TV producer, a theatrical impresario, and he wants to be treated as Mr. Windsor but when ...
ANDREW MORTON I think Michael Caine is a perfectly good actor but it's obvious he's not going to be in one...
MIKE LEIGH

More Elia Kazan

To be a member of the Communist Party is to have a taste of the police state. It is a diluted taste ...
ELIA KAZAN Whatever hysteria exists is inflamed by mystery, suspicion and secrecy. Hard and exact facts will co...
ELIA KAZAN You've got to keep fighting; you've got to risk your life every six months to stay alive.
ELIA KAZAN I said to Tennessee, this thing is becoming the Marlon Brando show.
ELIA KAZAN You've got to keep fighting; you've got to risk your life every six months to stay alive
ELIA KAZAN You've got to keep fighting -- you've got to risk your life every six months to stay alive.
ELIA KAZAN The writer, when he is also an artist, is someone who admits what others don't dare reveal.
ELIA KAZAN The more ambivalent you are and the more uncertain you are, then you can get something that you cann...
ELIA KAZAN Every fighter has one fight that makes or breaks him.
ELIA KAZAN Hey, you must be doin' good, 'cause I never hear from you.
ELIA KAZAN I was not a collective person or a bohemian; I was an elitist.
ELIA KAZAN I was both very successful and very left; the living demonstration of how you could be on the left a...
ELIA KAZAN I knew the exuberance of playing before an admiring audience and hearing my secret voice.
ELIA KAZAN If there is a better performance by a man in the history of film, I don't know what it is.
ELIA KAZAN You've got to keep fighting - you've got to risk your life every six months to stay alive
ELIA KAZAN Anybody who informs on other people is doing something disturbing and even disgusting.
ELIA KAZAN Jesus Christ, he is Cal!
ELIA KAZAN I've been ratting on myself all these years and I didn't know it. I'm glad what I done.
ELIA KAZAN I was the hero of the young insurgent working class art movement.
ELIA KAZAN He was smart, he knew everything.
ELIA KAZAN I want to thank the Academy for its courage and generosity.
ELIA KAZAN I thought what a terrible thing I had done; not the political aspect of it because maybe that was co...
ELIA KAZAN The motion pictures I have made and the plays I have chosen to direct represent my convictions.
ELIA KAZAN What's called a difficult decision is a difficult decision because either way you go there are p...
ELIA KAZAN The essence of the stage is concentration and penetration. Of the screen action, movement, sweep.
ELIA KAZAN Stylized acting and direction is to realistic acting and direction as poetry is to prose.
ELIA KAZAN A film director has to get a shot, no matter what he does. We're desperate people.
ELIA KAZAN I truly believe that all power corrupts. Such is probably the thinking behind every political film e...
ELIA KAZAN Every picture that is successful has one little miracle in it.
ELIA KAZAN I spoke without fear of contradiction. I simply did not suffer self-doubt.
ELIA KAZAN I used to spend most of my time straining to be a nice guy so people would like me.
ELIA KAZAN I was taken in by what might be called the Hard Times version of the Communists' advertising or ...
ELIA KAZAN I joined the Communist Party late in 1934. I got out a year and a half later.
ELIA KAZAN I'm small, but I'm neither compliant nor agreeable.
ELIA KAZAN I would rather do what I did than crawl in front of a ritualistic Left and lie the way those other c...
ELIA KAZAN I think there should be collaboration, but under my thumb.
ELIA KAZAN I hate the Communists and have for many years and don't feel right about giving up my career to ...
ELIA KAZAN The writer, when he is also an artist, is someone who admits what others don't dare reveal.
ELIA KAZAN The makers of entertainment must try, in our field, to be honest and grown-up.
ELIA KAZAN When you come to my show you get the real thing. I don't pretend to be Sinatra — I just happen to ...
PAUL ELIA If we drop the rates today, and the price increase continues, then in a very short period of time we...
ELIA GERMANI I don't think it's our role to sit down with various parties, and come to an agreement, a consensus....
ELIA GERMANI WHAT WE'RE DEALING with here is a request by the electric company to pass on to its customers costs ...
ELIA GERMANI This is a long-term problem, it's a long-term energy crisis, which has not been addressed by either ...
ELIA GERMANI If you cannot be quiet, I'm going to ask you to leave the room.
ELIA GERMANI I think film writing, you're thinking in pictures, and stage writing, you're thinking in dia...
ZOE KAZAN I've always really been interested in the Pygmalion myth and both what it has to say about creat...
ZOE KAZAN I think most actors jump at the chance to do something where the camera's on them all the time.
ZOE KAZAN When I look back, I can say that the summer when I was 19 was a formative time for me. But at the ti...
ZOE KAZAN I think movies have much more magic than the theater. Theater can be a magical experience, but movie...
ZOE KAZAN I think action should be revealed through character, so if you have a plot problem, it's probabl...
ZOE KAZAN I never wanted to be a playwright.
ZOE KAZAN I took a writing class in college, liked it, and my first year out of school I couldn't get a jo...
ZOE KAZAN I always wrote. My parents are writers. It just seemed like something people did.
ZOE KAZAN Writing-wise, I like to have a lot of things on the burners at once, because when I hit a wall, I li...
ZOE KAZAN If I ever feel that acting is just soul-sucking and I don't want to do it anymore, I could stop.
ZOE KAZAN I love to walk around New York. Honestly, that's like the best thing, to walk over to Park Slope...
ZOE KAZAN Anytime that I've felt uninspired, I don't force myself to sit down and write. I only do it ...
ZOE KAZAN I love bad movies, whereas going to the theater for me is a painful experience. I think it's rea...
ZOE KAZAN I'm used to very low-budget situations. In 'The Exploding Girl,' we were literally chang...
ZOE KAZAN I really love people. I love to meet people. I'm curious about people.
ZOE KAZAN I don't have a lot of patience for boring arthouse movies.
ZOE KAZAN And when I get bored, it's like the worst parts of me come out. I really veer to self-destructiv...
ZOE KAZAN You set up the story, but the characters start talking, and they go places that you didn't expec...
ZOE KAZAN My schedule is completely different doing a play than it is doing a movie, and I actually think it&#...
ZOE KAZAN I don't like pretentious films or pretentious people.
ZOE KAZAN People really do make the assumption that I had some weirdo Hollywood upbringing, but my parents are...
ZOE KAZAN I have mad luck. I'm super-good at games like backgammon or anything that requires rolling dice.
ZOE KAZAN In New York you can just walk out and be among people. You're on the subway among people, you go...
ZOE KAZAN I'd seen all the great entertainers by the time I was 14 or 15. My mother was artistic. My fathe...
LAINIE KAZAN I went to a lot of theatre. My parents were very involved with the performing arts. I went to nightc...
LAINIE KAZAN I was a student of Sanford Meisner for three years at the Neighborhood Playhouse, and I studied with...
LAINIE KAZAN I have a rich, full, textured life.
LAINIE KAZAN I'm an exercise and yoga junkie and I feel good.
LAINIE KAZAN I love singing. It's who I am. When I act, I take a small part of myself and just magnify it, bu...
LAINIE KAZAN And I think the female creative urge is intrinsically biologically linked to our ability to give bir...
ZOE KAZAN Nothing's going to come to you by sitting around and waiting for it.
ZOE KAZAN I find playwriting to be incredibly difficult compared to screenwriting. Part of it is that I grew u...
ZOE KAZAN I find playwriting really painful. I love it, or I wouldn't do it, but I don't love the thea...
ZOE KAZAN This is the first wave of layoffs. The second wave -- I don't know when that would be -- may be a mu...
ELINA KAZAN To be a true national brand, you really have to have stores all across the country.
ELINA KAZAN It's not as if it's like two complete, separate stores.
ELINA KAZAN We're making every effort to offer jobs to displaced employees.
ELINA KAZAN We are very concerned about the individuals who were hurt.
ELINA KAZAN We're looking forward to having them here next year, them and their family. They are remarkable youn...
ELINA KAZAN They are remarkable young ladies. We're very sad they were injured.
ELINA KAZAN Your absence of mind we have borne, till your presence of body came to be called in question by it.
CHARLES LAMB (USED PSEUDONYM ELIA) He hath a fair sepulchre in the grateful stomach of the judicious epicure--and for such a tomb migh...
CHARLES LAMB (USED PSEUDONYM ELIA) A woman asked a coachman, "Are you full inside?" Upon which Lamb put his head through the window a...
CHARLES LAMB (USED PSEUDONYM ELIA) Society is like a large piece of frozen water; and skating well is the great art of social life.
CHARLES LAMB (USED PSEUDONYM ELIA) He might have proved a useful adjunct, if not an ornament to society.
CHARLES LAMB (USED PSEUDONYM ELIA) Who first invented work, and bound the free And holyday-rejoicing spirit down . . . To that dr...
CHARLES LAMB (USED PSEUDONYM ELIA) "Presents," I often say, endear Absents."
CHARLES LAMB (USED PSEUDONYM ELIA) For with G.D., to be absent from the body is sometimes (not to speak it profanely) to be present wi...
CHARLES LAMB (USED PSEUDONYM ELIA) If dirt was trumps, what hands you would hold!
CHARLES LAMB (USED PSEUDONYM ELIA) You do not play then at whist, sir? Alas, what a sad old age you are preparing for yourself! [Fr...
CHARLES LAMB (USED PSEUDONYM ELIA) Do not fold, spindle or mutilate.
CHARLES LAMB (USED PSEUDONYM ELIA) The game [of poker] exemplifies the worst aspects of capitalism that have made our country so great...
CHARLES LAMB (USED PSEUDONYM ELIA) A clear fire, a clean hearth, and the rigour of the game.
CHARLES LAMB (USED PSEUDONYM ELIA) The cheerful Sabbath bells, wherever heard, Strike pleasant on the sense, most like the voice ...
CHARLES LAMB (USED PSEUDONYM ELIA) Suck, baby! suck! mother's love grows by giving: Drain the sweet founts that only thrive by wast...
CHARLES LAMB (USED PSEUDONYM ELIA) To pile up honey upon sugar, and sugar upon honey, to an interminable tedious sweetness.
CHARLES LAMB (USED PSEUDONYM ELIA) I'm not final because I'm right, I'm right because I'm final.
CHARLES LAMB (USED PSEUDONYM ELIA) Half as sober as a judge.
CHARLES LAMB (USED PSEUDONYM ELIA) I love to lose myself in other men's minds. When I am not walking, I am reading; I cannot sit ...
CHARLES LAMB (USED PSEUDONYM ELIA) The truant Fancy was a wanderer ever.
CHARLES LAMB (USED PSEUDONYM ELIA) How some they have died, and some they have left me, And some are taken from me; all are departed;...
CHARLES LAMB (USED PSEUDONYM ELIA) What a place to be in is an old library! It seems as though all the souls of all the writers that ...
CHARLES LAMB (USED PSEUDONYM ELIA) Shut not thy purse-strings always against painted distress.
CHARLES LAMB (USED PSEUDONYM ELIA) Summer, as my friend Coleridge waggishly writes, has set in with its usual severity.
CHARLES LAMB (USED PSEUDONYM ELIA) Neat, not gaudy.
CHARLES LAMB (USED PSEUDONYM ELIA)