Quotes of All Topics . Occasions . Authors
When I read the script of 'The Wall,' I saw how much different the war looks from the point of view of a soldier fighting it.
It's kind of hard to work with Tom Cruise and not be aware that you're working with one of the biggest movie stars in the world.
Normally, the action is just a gratuitous thing. In the case of Bourne, he was going to learn about himself in the action scenes.
If you go to a restaurant with Tom Cruise, it's like walking in with Santa Claus. Everybody is in a better mood because he's there.
I've got a short attention span, so it makes sense that I like movies because, for the most part, they immerse you in lots of action.
The one thing about reality is sometimes it gives you material that is wilder than some of your wildest imagination could come up with.
I'm really attracted to anti-heroes, and I'm a little bit of a troublemaker myself, and a little bit of a rule-breaker, and I like spies.
When you make a war movie, the other side has to be the enemy. You're making a war movie from the point of view of a soldier fighting it.
In the real world, if you're in a car chase, you're going to hit a million things and your car is going to end up a total wreck by the end.
I think when the United States of America put a man on the moon in 1969, that was one of the greatest accomplishments mankind has ever done.
There are actors who just bring an enormous amount of empathy. They just have that"it" that makes you want to follow them and root for them.
I like making movies that have some of the qualities of first-person shooter games. That was very important to me for the 'Bourne' franchise.
Obviously, anyone who has seen Mr. and Mrs. Smith knows that husband and wife married spies is something that I find particularly interesting.
'Mr. and Mrs. Smith' - every scene is from those characters' point of view. They're in literally every scene, very unusual in a big studio film.
VR should offer an experience that's more exciting than watching in 2D, and we're pretty good at 2D storytelling, so the bar's already pretty high.
My characters in my movies are all flawed. You'll probably never see Tom Hanks in a Doug Liman film. He plays, you know, very earnest and unflawed.
I really have thought about immersive storytelling my whole career, so when I first heard about VR, I was like, 'Oh, this sounds like it's for me.'
It's no secret that my process is a little bit loose and can be a little bit infuriating to a studio if they don't know what they're signing up for.
There would be no Marvel without 'Swingers'; there would be no Jon Favreau directing 'Iron Man,' no Robert Downey Jr. playing Iron Man; no 'Avengers.'
One thing about pushing yourself outside your comfort zone is that you're going to make mistakes, and you're going to fall flat on your face sometimes.
My films have been successful, and therefore, the process has accommodated me. When the studio said 'no,' I did it anyhow. Now they don't say no to me.
At the end of the day, I like the spy genre, as opposed to the action movie genre, because spies are smart. The successful spies are the smarter spies.
I love 'Bringing Up Baby.' Anything that Katharine Hepburn's in. I'm committed to the Humphrey Bogart, Cary Grant, Katharine Hepburn era of filmmaking.
My films are very rooted in specific people's point of view. Some film-makers give a more global point of view, like God looking down at the characters.
You gotta understand, 'Swingers' was a resume film for me. I never thought anybody would see the movie who I wasn't in the room with showing it to them.
Casting is everything. I put a huge amount of work into casting, and consistently across my career, I am most proud of my bold choices I made in casting.
Ultimately, if you look at the characters in my films, you'll see a lot of similarities going all the way back to 'Swingers' with Vince Vaughn's character.
In hindsight, everything in my life looks a little rosy. But the reality is that with, say, 'Swingers,' when we finished, it was considered a total failure.
If you do something that's really original, you discover why everybody else does it the other way, usually. There's a reason cliches exist, 'cause they work.
My family went to the Hamptons, so I understand what happens when a slice of perfect utopia gets overdeveloped, when one way of living is replaced by another.
I've made a career of being a contrarian. If I'm going to work with Tom Cruise, it's my instinct to be like, 'Well, I'm going to do the anti-Tom Cruise movie.'
What I really found was that the one similarity between Covert Affairs and Fair Game is a deep love and admiration and fascination with the home life of a spy.
What I really found was that the one similarity between 'Covert Affairs' and 'Fair Game' is a deep love and admiration and fascination with the home life of a spy.
It's much easier to do a fight sequence between two people, if one of the two people in the fight is a stunt person, or you're going to risk somebody getting hurt.
I pride myself on doing character-driven movies and, when my movies have worked, it's been because of the right casting and the right character, and it just clicks.
TV has no choice, but to rely on character, and everybody knows that. I love working in it. It's such a big canvas where, if you're successful, you go on for years.
Antiheroes who are sort of honest to themselves are the ones you root for. Like, Barry Seal isn't trying to be anything other than he is. He isn't fooling anybody per se.
The thing about TV is it's a meritocracy. I love that aspect of it - and I've had shows that have gone on the air and been canceled. I've seen the good and the bad of it.
I probably shouldn't treat interviews as therapy sessions, but I don't keep a diary, so these end up being my way of keeping track of where I'm at and letting it all out.
Given the kind of filmmaker I am, the kind of experiences I've been trying to give audiences, I was drawn to the potential of VR before I even tried watching anything in VR.
A movie like 'Edge of Tomorrow' is so huge and complex - the spectacle and action is all-consuming - and that on its own is enough of a reason for a lot of people to see it.
The 'Bourne' franchise means the world to me. I love that Universal wants to put one out every two years. Because it is a safe investment, I benefit from that on many levels.
All of my fellow directors, I think, would agree that in whatever medium you are working, the challenges and obstacles push them to be more creative. That's the case with VR.
When I'm working on a film, I think about how it will play with a tiny audience of friends whose opinions I respect, basically a 40-bloc radius from my apartment in Manhattan.
More of 'The Bourne Identity's script was taken from the events of the Iran Contra, which my father investigated for the Senate, than what was taken from Robert Ludlum's novel.
That's why 'The Bourne Identity' has that sort of shaky style, because for the most part, Matt Damon and I were sneaking around Paris and shooting where we didn't have permits.
I think of myself as making independent films within the studio system. Yes, I've made movies with significantly larger budgets, and I've also made movies with smaller budgets.
I really love the movies of Katherine Hepburn, movies like 'The African Queen.' I love 'Midnight Run' and I suppose, to pick something out of a different genre, I love 'Aliens.'
When I'm working on a film, I think about how it will play with a tiny audience of friends whose opinions I respect - basically, a 40-bloc radius from my apartment in Manhattan.
When I was shooting 'The Bourne Identity,' I had a mantra: 'How come you never see James Bond pay a phone bill?' It sounds trite, but it became the foundation of that franchise.