My partner Dan Ireland wants me to direct, and I read a lot of scripts - some good enough that I could see myself. But then it's like, so what? Who cares? Let someone else direct it.
Sentiment: NEGATIVE
I have no directing ambition whatsoever. And as long as I meet filmmakers like Tom Hooper, Stephen Frears, and others who allow that collaboration, I can't see why I would ever want to direct.
I think of myself as a guy who tries to write screenplays and now has tried to direct one. Anything more than that is meaningless and it gets in the way of being a real human being.
I'm not one of these actors who feels a pressing need to direct, and I have no plans to do it.
I never thought I wanted to direct. I love the control of it. I love to dream of scenes.
I feel like if you feel good about a script, and you feel confident about your ability to direct and just capture it right, it's all just, really, really in your favor there.
Some people, especially literary people, they think, 'I'll write this original script, and it will be full of ideas. I'll submit it, and they'll hire me for television.' That's not the case.
As a writer, it's very difficult to just hand your script over to someone else, especially if you have to watch them hurt it, and that's when I decided I would direct my own work.
If you put someone in a room with no script to direct, they're just going to sit there. Writing scripts is the execution for a show. Then the director takes that and hires people. It's like trying to build a house without any bricks. You need the script. I could build the house, but I have to know how.
All the films I do, I write the scripts, I direct.
I really like acting but, just now, the more I read a script I find myself thinking I'd like to direct rather than act.