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Most of the producers don't know what they do. The misconception of the producers' function is really not a misconception. Most producers don't do a very good job.

Composers and lyricists are not responsible for storyline and casting. One can imagine actors shouldering this responsibility, since they charge for half the film. But producers never ask actors to share the losses. Instead, they train their guns on composers and lyricists.

I've never let producers tell me what to do. Even when I was making television, I always did what I wanted to do, and if I couldn't, I didn't do it. It was a freedom that, these days, young directors starting out don't have.

Producing is a world of compromise and actors are utterly spoiled all the time.

Sometimes the producer has more say and the director takes what he is given. On other occasions, you don't see the producer very much and the director is the one who it is all about.

Producers are men who will keep their heads in the noisy presence of writers and directors and not be carried away by art in any of its subversive guises. Their task is to guard against the unusual. They are the trusted loyalists of cliche.

Each production has certain circumstances that will bring you to a certain way of making it. It is not intentional, it is not an artistic decision, the way we make films, it is the way we address to our problems.

Producers are now employees, not creators.

Once you become a producer, you're really selling something. It is a control issue, because you don't really know how it's going to pan out, but the creative control makes it work it.