When you're shooting a movie, it's two months of your life usually. You don't really have time to see anybody else. Your friends are put on hold while you're shooting, and what you have is the family that you create on set.
Sentiment: NEGATIVE
Once I finish shooting, I head straight home and spend time with my family. It's only when I have to promote my films that I make public appearances.
You never have any idea where your movie's going to go when you're shooting - you're in this little bubble. Everything you care about is getting the next step right: getting the script right, finding the right actors, shooting it. Then you spend half a year in a dark room editing your film, and you don't talk to anybody.
People don't realize how long hours are when you're shooting a movie.
You don't get to see your family much. In the movie business, directors often go out of town for long periods of time, and even if you're in town, you're working 14-15 hour days. People tend to not balance out the important things in their lives with their career.
When you go to the movies with your whole family, it's a different experience. For some reason, it's something that you're all doing together and you take away something special in that.
In theater, you're allowed to take your time and sit in a role for a month before you have to share it with anybody. In film and TV, you have to just kind of show up and be ready to do that, which, to me, is very strange and crazy.
Once you're on the set and shooting, it's all just cinema. You have actors and cameras.
In television you don't have a lot of time to spend with the role or the script. Typically you get a script a week prior to shooting. Sometimes it's even less time, not enough time to dream about the role.
Ultimately, making movies is a really, really small world. Being on sets and going to the same locations, like shooting in Shreveport, you're always working with somebody from another set that you worked with.
Usually, you can shoot a movie in 10 or 12 weeks.