The only person who has artistic control is the director, and 'director' is how you spell God in Hollywood.
Sentiment: NEGATIVE
If a film is very clever and well-written, that's what gives you freedom as a director.
There is a director for a reason, because a director knows what's best for the movie. You just give your director as much as you can to work with, and hopefully, the decisions they make are going to be great.
The director is the only person on the set who has seen the film. Your job as a director is to show up every day and know where everything will fit into the film.
A lot of directors, they're creative, but they're different.
All directors are control freaks and very obsessive. I get the feeling that directors as kids, they all have had a childhood with not too much contact with other kids. They constructed their own reality and they continue to do it. It's a funny breed, directors.
I'm very manipulative towards directors. My theory is that everyone on the set is directing the film, we're all receiving art messages from the universe on how we should do the film.
I've worked with a lot of directors, some of them you wouldn't really attach the word 'artist' to their name.
With Kubrick and most film directors, they are in complete control, but one can influence them.
'Control' had to do with my own life a lot, and that's why that seemed to be a film I could be the director of, because I had an emotional attachment to the whole story. And because of that experience, I feel that I can try other films. I didn't set out to become a director.
I don't believe that directors need to essentially manipulate actors into doing things. You can suffer for your art, and you can make your own self suffer for your art. You don't need anyone else to do it for you. I work best when there's a safety trampoline of kindness.