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The 9/11 Commission strongly recommends that the National Intelligence Director be fully in control of the budget, from developing it to implementing it, to ensuring that the National Intelligence Director has the clout to make decisions.
As an actor you have to bring to the table your creative input. But when a director like Ridley Scott says I want you to do this this way, you know when he gets to the editing room he has a reason for it. It's like watching a masterpiece.
Whatever you do, whatever you come up with, whatever you decide on, you can go with it, and if the director or the execs, they like it, then you'll stick with it. That's a good thing, as opposed to having something that's already written.
I started out as a writer and a director. I started acting because I wanted to know how to relate to the actors. When people ask me what I do, I don't really say that I'm an actor, because actors often wait for someone to give them roles.
I don't think I could have made a good movie out of 'Thor 2' because I wasn't the right director. And I don't think I would have been in the running for 'Wonder Woman' as a result. And that's one of the reasons why I'm glad I didn't do it.
I'm a curious person. I pursue things based on what sparks my interest. I'm not thinking about what role I play. I don't have to be a movie director or this or that. I just want to be part of projects and places that are of interest to me.
Every little opportunity and chance that I get to be on a set, to be a director, to utilize the skill sets that I already have and to learn what I don't know, and to see how I can improve upon that is just a really great opportunity for me.
I never take credit for my movie's success. I am the face of the movie, but there are numerous unsung heroes behind the scene. From the director, cameraman and editor to the light boy, everyone knows how difficult it is to satisfy the audience.
I guess I am basically most comfortable when I'm alone. As a kid, I was very much a loner. I love long distance running and long distance biking. A director once pointed out that those are all very isolated exercises you do for hours at a time.
It's the reality: film is a director's medium, and, ultimately, they are the ones that are in charge, and you have to respect that because somebody has to be in charge. But, yeah, you do reach a point where you want to have your voice come out.
Film buffs who don't live in Hollywood have a fantasy about what it's like to be a director. Movies and the people who make movies have such glamour associated with them. But the truth is, it's not like that. It's very different. It's hard work.
So, it becomes an exercise in futility if you write something that does not express the film as the director wishes. It's still their ball game. It's their show. I think any successful composer learns how to dance around the director's impulses.
Professionally speaking, the proudest moment was when I booked the 'Human Stain.' I knew it had Nicole Kidman, Anthony Hopkins, Ed Harris and Gary Sinise on board, and the director Robert Benton was an academy award winner for 'Kramer vs Kramer.'
It became very clear to the director that it would be foolish not to use our friendship. I had tried to talk to him about it because all the relationships in the film are so, not negative, but antagonistic. There's not a lot of love going around.
The first thing is that we're being attacked by both the Writers Guild and the Producers Guild. Both of these groups are trying to diminish the importance and strength of the director. They're trying to do it through both frontal and side attacks.
There are so many cruel decisions parents have to make when their child dies. The funeral director requested a sheet for the coffin, and I sent the cozy flannel one, pale blue with happy snowmen, that had just been put away with the winter linens.
What I look for in a script is something that challenges me, something that breaks new ground, something that allows me to flex my director muscle. You have got to think fast in this business, you've got to keep reinventing yourself to stay on top.
When I was in Mumbai for the promotion of 'Makkhi,' I met Ajay Devgn, Kajol, and Shah Rukh Khan, and I wanted to meet Aamir Khan. He was shooting out of India. I also met my favourite director, Raju Hirani. All of them showered praises on 'Makkhi.'
Because I've made a film with such an amazing director as Tarantino, I'm much more conscious of working with good directors from now on, so that's what's important to me. I don't really care about making a big movie - I just want to make good ones.
You have to pretend to live in those clothes that they lived in, to live within the climate that they had then. You have to imagine with the help, obviously, of all the other technicians that are around - the writer, the director, the other actors.
I was creating characters early. People didn't beat me up. I scared them. I hated authority. I could also get people to do things; I was quite the early director. I could make people laugh enough to get their defences down - and then brainwash them.
When I do a movie, I have the script. I know how it begins and how it ends. I know what my character does and where he's going. If I have ideas I want to express or changes I want to make, there's one guy: the director. It's different in television.
A few years back I was asked if I would go and meet a director and his various acolytes, and it occurred to me halfway through the meeting that what I was doing was auditioning. And I thought, 'Well, hang on buddy. I've done half a century of this.'
I love working with a set designer because, in many respects, you meet the set designer before you meet the actors. So it's a chance for me as a director to figure out what I'm thinking and to explore how the space is going to actually be activated.
Then I usually leave the choice of the second assistant director and any other assistant directors to the first assistant director, who will choose because he or she is responsible for the conduct and the efficiency of the second assistant directors.
We came up with this idea of a power struggle between two people who really love each other, and 'Doll & Em' took off. Calling it by our own names was the director's idea, but hopefully people will understand that we're playing versions of ourselves.
I started out doing commercials, like Diet Coke and Pizza Hut. And I started to find there was a different life for me, in a different field. From there, I got a call from a director in Italy, and we did 'Indio' I and II, and that's where it started.
The music video director really wanted to incorporate the imagery of guns into 'Nega Dola' because the lyrics are very aggressive. It kind of portrayed a very strong image. So that's how we connected weapons and the imagery of a dangerous atmosphere.
Those memories of living in a developing nation are part of who I am today and give me a profound understanding of the challenges of economic development - an understanding which will make my tenure as Peace Corps director, I hope, a very special one.
As an actor, I had the most power than I've ever had before, because I was able to create and arc and pursue that idea fully, because as every new director that came on, no one knew 'Hanna' like I knew 'Hanna.' That is something that I knew inside me.
I don't choose parts. I choose filmmakers. I'm done trying to make a statement with a character. What happens is, I craft a performance from the beginning to the end of the character. Then I release it to the director, and he interprets what I gave him.
David Fincher is a longtime friend. As a director, my wife had worked with him as a makeup artist when he would do Madonna videos years before, and his child and my oldest child were in preschool together, so we're kind of dad-friends through that, too.
I got a nomination for director, which means the world to me; it's just the most exciting thing for me and my family. You do the good hard work, and the rest of it is something you shouldn't get too caught up in, but when it happens - boy! I respect it.
I spent four months in Prague in these blue rooms reacting to nothing and you basically place your faith in the hands of the director and the special effects co-coordinator and you keep your fingers crossed and hope that the creatures look really scary.
I mean, this whole digital revolution is really eroding the director's importance on a movie because, number one, just from a practical standpoint, with floppy disks and the ability to put all of the film onto a disk, more people have access to the movie.
I believe in hard work, not luck factor. The best efforts will reap the best fruits. Nobody can take all the credit. We don't even talk about the efforts of the director, the writers, other technicians, etc. They all together take a film to another level.
'Slow West' is a film that I did with Michael Fassbender in New Zealand and Scotland. The director was John McLean. It's a film set in the 1800s. I play a young Scottish boy brought up in the royal family. I fall in love with someone who works on our land.
I come from a very humble background. My father had to work really hard to become an assistant director. For a large part of his youth, he worked in a mill and took up odd jobs to make ends meet. We lived in a small room and could only afford a meal a day.
We expect 'Narcos' will be an enormous success throughout everywhere in the world and maybe out-index in Latin America, given the Brazilian star and Brazilian director and heavy Latin American cast and that we shot the show entirely on location in Colombia.
I can't be enthusiastic as soon as I write something on the music sheet. The music sheet is only the beginning: it has to be listened to, played by the instruments, and then heard by the director, but most importantly, it has to be listened to by the public.
I was an executive producer. I've done a lot of jobs and I think each one helps you get closer to what you want as a director. It also helps you - when you work with different filmmakers - to absorb, to adapt, to know what to watch out for, to know pitfalls.
Your own barometer is all you have to go by, and often what makes a good director is knowing when not to say something. On occasions you can find yourself on a film set where the person who is wearing the director's hat is only trying to justify his position.
George H.W. Bush had perhaps the greatest resume in American history. Director of the CIA, ambassador to the U.N., envoy to China, vice president of the United States and then, of course, president. It's staggering to contemplate one person achieving so much.
What I've learned is sometimes it's good not to have all the same actions and have all the same takes. The variety you provide gives the director later on in post-production the ability to construct a more interesting performance as he puts the movie together.
From my side, I don't put pressure on the director to cater to a certain image. I am happy to do different films, and I have to stick by my director. I like to completely surrender myself to the director - that way, I think, I don't get to do the similar roles.
I make it happen. Who bought Alex Haley's book 'Roots' for TV? Me. I hired the director, hired the writer. I put them all together. I'm like the chef. If I mix all the ingredients right, it's going to taste terrific. If I don't, it's not going to come out good.
After 'Hamara Dil Aapke Paas Hai,' 'Hum Aapke Dil Mein Rehte Hai' and 'Mujhe Kucch Kehna Hai,' my presence as a director will be felt. These three films have been very successful and 'Badhaai Ho Badhaai' is going to be the climax. My work is finally recognised.
I remember giving auditions for ad films and I used to wait for hours for my turn to come. I used to go for print shoots for Rs 2000. I used to go to the director's office with my portfolio and the receptionists used to tell me to put it in the post box outside.
I stayed at 'Cosmo' well beyond my internship, moving up the ranks over some 15 years to become books editor, then brand director, then editor-at-large - editing everything from an excerpt of Gore Vidal's memoir to writing some of those juicy cover lines myself.
I can't help thinking if she - the director of a government agency - is this ignorant about what funding is available and where the money comes from - how often lower-level bureaucrats must give wrong answers when people are looking for help to start a business.