Film Producers From The United States

"Joan the Woman was the most interesting undertaking from the point of view of the artists and the director in the history of the pictures, I believe. It is entirely different from the spectacle features, as it is essentially drama, with the story always first and most important and the spectacular features secondary, although many critics have more than praised the battles and scenes of pageantry."

"Motion pictures are the most important contribution to literature and art since the invention of fiction."

"Cecil B. DeMille, the producer-director of Samson and Delilah, always saw all of Hollywood to find the best people for his spectaculars. So when I got the call, I wasn't all that anxious to come in for the interview from Laguna, where I was living then. I thought, "Well, he's seeing everyone and now it's my turn." Meeting him in his office at Paramount, I found that he had an extensive knowledge of my entire career—that's how thorough he was. When the interview lasted four hours, I knew I was in."

"The phrases, "happy ending" and "unhappy ending" are misnomers. They belong to an era when the public demanded a saccharine finish to every picture, irrespective of whether or not it was logical. Film-goers of 1933 insist upon a new standard in their screen entertainment. They are not particularly concerned about the ending of a picture so long as it is truthful. Naturally, they do not want a preponderance of depressing themes, but I am firmly convinced that they would rather witness a tragic finish that is truthful and logical than a sugar-coated ending that is not. In The Sign of the Cross the problem of bringing the story to a close is one that would have been difficult a few years ago, when the sugary tradition ruled the film industry. But now that the words "happy" and "unhappy" have been deleted from cinema terminology, our task was simplified, and we gave an ending which appeals to logic and intelligence."

"Well it was a bit of a conundrum because his actions in his kind of business had a real ugliness. It's power and violence and murder and mayhem and menace. And yet, I thought it was a mistake as an actor to predetermine or prejudge whether he's a good guy or a bad guy. You can't go into any characterization with that opinion or attitude or approach because it's sudden death. What it will convey ultimately is a one-dimensional character – the figure in the black hat that you've you seen countless time…"

"Film and television essentially feel the same when you’re doing it, because it’s the same technical approach. All the homework is the same. The homework for each medium is all similar, but the gratification in a live theater context is much higher, because it’s immediate. It’s far more dangerous, because there are no retakes. It’s electric, it’s an actual chemical transaction that occurs between you and the audience. Whatever energy you’re throwing out to them they throw it right back to you, and it kind of feeds on itself in this vacuum…"

"It can be considered by many to be foolhardy, especially when you’re messing with what’s considered a sacred text. But it’s also an irresistible challenge, isn’t it? It evokes so many different wild and outrageous and beautiful images that anyone who loves both novels and films can’t help but imagine what it would look like on the big screen. In this case I’m glad they took the challenge on. I think Marquez is glad too. Apparently he’s seen it and he’s responded favorably to it, he likes it. The trick is, as you aptly point out, is how to do it but how to do it well. Because it’s not an easy translation to make, and certainly nearly impossible when you’re talking about a great novel, which this is. The best you can hope for really is to capture the essence of the book, and I think the film has done that, which is good news."

"As a bisexual woman (who, as it happens, is faithfully married to a man and therefore living a “straight” life) I feel it is important to include homosexual or bisexual characters in my work. I am living proof that such things are not “choices,” but innate…"

"There are writers in commercial women’s fiction who get really worked up, and they blog about [the label] and rail against the establishment. I can empathize and understand that frustration, but at the same time, it’s a waste of energy. I look at what the readers and writers of the romance genre have done in creating a parallel universe where they sell millions of books to readers who know these writers are good. They don’t need the stamp of approval. And what I love about my readers is that they are far more sophisticated, in my opinion, than most literary critics, and far less insecure. At the end of the day, people are reading my books and communicating directly with me, thanks to technology."

"I think labels are generally used to benefit those who invented them, and those who invent them tend not to be those upon whom they are foisted. That said, labels can be tools of empowerment or marginalization, depending on who is using them and why…"

"Never sat down and thought: “I’m going to create a new genre.” I just sat down and wrote a book that I wanted to read but couldn’t find. In retrospect, I don’t think it’s a new genre; it’s just a novel. There’s an unfortunate tendency in the publishing industry to view ethnicity as a genre and only for certain people. So if you are a minority, your race or ethnicity becomes your genre. Or if you are a woman, your sex becomes your genre. “Women’s fiction”: What does that even mean? Would we ever dare say “commercial men’s fiction”? I think these are marketing terms."

"The biggest driving force in my life has been justice — and by that I don’t mean revenge. I mean fairness for all kinds of people. I think it comes in part from being the daughter of an immigrant who was grossly underestimated for most of his career and life, and the sort of despair you feel watching that happen, the sense that things aren’t fair from a very early age…"

"We kind of look at it as the Henson Company's little Star Wars or Lord Of The Rings franchise. It truly has the ability to be explored in different geographical parts of that world, or different time periods of that world, and it's been so fun to expand the canon of The Dark Crystal. Now that we've got the ball rolling on that, it feels like that could continue indefinitely."

"For me, watching his performances of Aughra and the Chamberlain is incredible and I'm so moved by how he infused life into those characters. That's pure talent to really take an inanimate object and give it life so believably. It's still the core asset of this film."

"[I]t's basically the screenplay adaptation so that is the sequel to The Dark Crystal. We thought, 'Why should we let this story that we thought up not get seen by the public?' We just went a different way with it."

"What’s gonna happen to us, you know centuries from now? We don’t know. We just kind of have to live our daily lives and win the daily battle. We think this is a really hopeful and inspiring story about heroes who, when faced with a really scary and mysterious threat—which is what the Skeksis are doing to them and threatening their very life essence—you know, they manage to pull together and fight as a team. You kind of don’t expect gelfling—if you know the original film—you don’t expect gelfling to have that kind of gumption. You don’t even know that they have a fight in them, but they do. And we learn that they do in the series."

"We took that as our jumping off point for the whole series. What was that culture? What was lost? What was that beautiful Gelfling civilization?"

"I think people, whether they are studied in puppetry or not, are going to love the artistic tapestry that’s up there. Some of the tiniest details in The Dark Crystal like when the Chamberlain’s eyelid starts to twitch, just make it feel so much more real, so much more alive."

"People talk about how look and feel of The Dark Crystal is so much more real than CGI but they also had no choice because there was no computer animation when The Dark Crystal was made. There were some optical effects, there were some composites that were hand done in the lab but there were no computer effects."

"The prep period for The Dark Crystal was really long, it was literally years because they had the world and the creatures developed before they ever had a firm storyline. The script for The Dark Crystal actually fell in place later than anything else and some of it was only during post-production."

"We're so pleased that that is pure puppetry. If you take the puppeteers out, they're still being moved by the puppeteers. We'll have a very simple scene of a character that's doing a normal gesture, and that's many puppeteers to accomplish that."

"They just couldn't get their head around the idea that the person who was doing The Muppet Show and The Muppet Movie, things that were so light and joyful, that he himself would want to deviate from what he had been doing. It was really surprising to people and they expressed a lot of doubt about it. Then, the film did pretty well commercially and it also did very well internationally. This story has so many universal qualities such as good and evil, the characters are not American and they're not from any place in particular and so it worked around the world."

""I'm a Democrat for the reinforcement of the Patriot Act. It's not strong enough. The A.C.L.U. can eat their heart out, but they are living in the 1970's. We should all have ID's. You betcha. What do you have to hide? Some friends of mine on the left side think I'm crazy"."

""I'm a one-issue guy and my issue is Israel"."

"Getting to play with Thor's hammer while he stroked my bow."

"I love the idea of going to work and having to fight and learn a new skill set, whether it's muay Thai or Kali or Filipino stick fighting. To me, it's like college for life."

"I don't do well with expectation in my life. All I can do is do the best that I can do."

"I don't really think there's much difference between a character actor and a leading man besides aesthetics."

"I want my personal life to be personal... And I don't care if you're talking about things that are true, you're still talking about my personal life."

"Our friendship has remained all that time, and I'm godfather to his kids, but then when The Hurt Locker came around, I just knew there was a lot of opportunity that was coming in, and just couldn't really manifest any opportunities because things were busy."

"I like to play unpredictable characters, and I like to be unpredictable in what movie I'll do. I want to skip to work. I don't want to repeat anything. What the future holds, I don't know, but that's what I like. I'll take any risk there is."

"I like to stay busy, I like to stay focused, and I like to stay creative. Without being creative I'd be dead."

"The movie business is very difficult but the music business is just impossible. So I'll play in bands and record and play songs with other people, but for me it's a form of expression that all I need is me. I don't need cameras or agents, I can just have a piano and sing and feel totally verified."

"Grab love of life every day. Because we're all gonna die. It's difficult to live that way. Most people are afraid to. Or can't. I find it very difficult."

"I think it's great to be a part of a franchise that is successful. Any franchise is successful because it's a continuation and people have seen it."

"I want to be a good human being."

"People find themselves in ruts all the time. You're in a complacent lifestyle where you work 9 to 5 and then you add a mortgage and kids. You feel trapped, but guess what, brother? You constructed that life. If you're OK with it, there's nothing wrong with that. But if you've got unease, then you've got to make a change."

"Because Launchpad appeared in 'DuckTales' and we used Roboduck as the Superman character, the hero who gets all the glory as opposed to Darkwing, fans try to connect the two realities, They are two different universes in my book. We work in the alternate Duckiverse."

"It was not smooth at all, and it was because of me, not because of Jim. Jim should have ****in' fired me several times. Jim was extraordinarily patient. I was a young guy who wanted to make his mark in the world, and if I was the co-director, by God why wasn't I attending more meetings and why didn't I get more say in things? I had a problem of self-esteem and it came through that way. It was difficult for Jim, not for me. It was frustrating for me, but that was an unhealthy frustration. It worked because Jim was patient."

"This is Jim – he said, "Would you direct Dark Crystal with me?" and I said, "Why? I don't know how to direct. You could do it yourself. Why would you want me to direct with you?" He said, "Because it would be better." And that's all that mattered. He didn't care about the credit. He knew that he had some weaknesses and he felt that I had some strengths, and so we worked together that way."

"What I don't like is describing Jim as that he was this wonderful, warm, sweet man because, yes he was a wonderful, warm, sweet man – but he was also the strongest man I ever met in character. He was very tough. He worked like a sonofabitch. He could get cranky and he got snarky at times. He would rarely get angry. I've seen him angry only about three times in my life. He was a very complex guy, but he was that noble spirit."

"It seems Mr. Mark Saltzman was asked if Bert & Ernie are gay. It’s fine that he feels they are. They’re not, of course. But why that question? Does it really matter? Why the need to define people as only gay? There’s much more to a human being than just straightness or gayness."

"Jim didn't have a script – he didn't work that normal way. He wanted to have a laboratory of textures and designs and ideas and rehearsals. He had a story – but he wanted the script to work in conjunction with the laboratory of creating the characters."

"What Jim wanted to do, and it was totally his vision, was to get back to the darkness of the original Grimm’s fairy tales. He thought it was fine to scare children. He didn’t think it was healthy for children to always feel safe."

"I helped him direct the movie, but he had the vision. It was because of Jim not accepting the impossible and as a result he would work harder than anybody I’ve ever known because he was the one who led the way by working harder. None of us could say no because he always worked harder than us. When you say special, I think that really is the memory that I have, the incredible upward hill journey that we had to do every single day. It was very tough."

"I’m not involved in the slightest. I say “godspeed.” I am not involved. Nobody’s mentioned it in any way to me whatsoever. I’ll be very curious to see it."

"God knows, I’m hardly a sociologist. But I hope in the future for some form of reconciliation. Because I think all men are guilty. I’m not talking about rape and pillage. I’m not talking about Harveyesque. I’m talking about all of the spectrum. From an aggressive flirt. Or even just a flirty-flirt that has one sour note in it. Or what I think every man was guilty of, some form of omission in attitude, in his views. Are we really going to have only capital punishment? Because right now, that’s what we have. You get accused, you’re obliterated. Charlie Rose ceases to exist."

"What I've learned over the years is that focus and singular purpose is the best approach for businesses."

"I’ve always said that I believe deeply in creative conflict, and that means passionately arguing–whatever your thoughts are, whatever the point is. Some people love that and it helps them grow, learn, etc. Some people run for the hills. I’ve always said to people, “Look, it’s not a room for everybody. If you like this environment, great. If you don’t, please leave, because it’s not good for any of us.”"

"Our relationship was based almost always on him calling up and asking, 'Is this a good deal?,' I’m not in his business, and I wasn’t trying to be. I was just a guy who admired him a lot and was flattered he wanted my advice. I buy my clothes at J.Crew online, I’m a very casual guy. When I go to see Iron Man 3, I’m not as enthralled as I was when I saw The Bridge on the River Kwai I don’t agree that the best giving is anonymous. We should be examples to our friends and communities. I should be an example to young, gay kids it’s not like people are really anonymous anyway -- you remember that episode of Curb Your Enthusiasm? In the end, everybody knows who 'anonymous' is."