Latest Todd Solondz Quotes from Interviews

Quotes about:

• That said, be mindful, to someone who's never seen any of my work, it's just a movie with actors. So it's only those who of course know the earlier work that will see something is afoot, so to speak. But I don't want to intellectualize.

  Todd Solondz

  Speak

  Source: film.avclub.com

• I think there are many advantages to not knowing any of my prior work. The narrative threads, I think, are totally accessible to anyone who may never have heard of me. There's a beginning, a middle, and an end - I don't think there's going to be any confusion there.

  Todd Solondz

  Thinking, Confusion

  Source: film.avclub.com

• I think, in fact, there's a plus and a minus to knowing my prior work, Happiness and so forth. The plus is of course you can see how I play with the characters, the storylines, and the way things play off each other. And the minus is that it makes you a little bit more self-conscious, that you're not able to enter the movie as it exists and lives and breathes, because you're so busy making references, connections that you're not able to release yourself from and take the film on your own terms.

  Todd Solondz

  Character, Thinking, Busy

  Source: film.avclub.com

• You try to make them comfortable so they can do what they're best at, and make them shine. You always want to make an actor shine. I'm of the mind that there's no one - you, your mother, anyone, that if in the right place at the right time in the right context, couldn't shine in a movie. And so if it means, "Oh, I have to make them uncomfortable," then whatever it takes to get what I need up onscreen. It's all in the service of the story.

  Todd Solondz

  Mother, Mean, Shining

  Source: www.avclub.com

• I don't have a formula. Every time an actor wants me to hold their hand, I hold their hand. If they say, "Stay," I say "Okay, respect." You know? "I'm right over here." A kid, if I need to give a line-reading, I'll start acting out the part for the kid and just mimic the kid. You know? Whatever it takes.

  Todd Solondz

  Kids, Giving, Acting

  Source: www.avclub.com

• What makes me put pen to paper? You know, that's the million-dollar question. I've been writing since I've been reading. It's not a question I think that's even meant to be answered, but it's something you always seek to discover the answer to. And the process of filmmaking is one of discovery, and self-discovery at that. Pleasure... it's not exactly what I would call fun, but it's absorbing.

  Todd Solondz

  Fun, Reading, Writing

  Source: www.avclub.com

• Casting is great fun, except for the business of it. I love the casting process. I love the editing process. I love working with the music. And even prep is very exciting. But once you get there and the clock is ticking, all it is is stress.

  Todd Solondz

  Fun, Stress, Clock

  Source: www.avclub.com

• We say we embrace humanity, but what does that mean? We are all defined by our limits, so to what extent can we embrace all this? Because we all contain within ourselves equally the capacity for kindness, as much as for cruelty or evil. And the best of us are able to suppress those baser impulses, instincts. That's the war within.

  Todd Solondz

  Kindness, War, Mean

  Source: www.avclub.com

• People call you "director," but it really should be "economic manager." Because everything is "Well, we can do another take here, but then you're gonna lose that shot over there." Or "The sun's going down, sorry, you're outta luck. We can't afford to." You know? And meanwhile, how do you get the performer's performance? I'm thinking the whole time all about "How can I get my day done?" And my performances are primarily a result of casting the right people at the right time in the right parts. And then I do little modifications.

  Todd Solondz

  Sorry, Thinking, People

  Source: www.avclub.com

• For me, New Jersey is kind of a mythical place. It's emblematic of a certain aspect of American life. Florida is the same way. It's where people go to recreate, to reinvent themselves. It's what California used to be. I think Florida is still a place to erase the past.

  Todd Solondz

  Past, Thinking, People

  Source: www.avclub.com

• You always have to be ahead of the audience so that they have to always catch up and know the movie's not quite going exactly where you think it's going, or expecting it to be going.

  Todd Solondz

  Thinking, Expecting, Audience

  Source: www.avclub.com

• A movie takes on its own life, and you have to respect that and be open to it.

  Todd Solondz

  Source: www.avclub.com

• I always have to presume that each movie is my last movie because I never know if I'll get money again.

  Todd Solondz

  Lasts, Get Money, Knows

  "'Wiener-Dog': Director Todd Solondz Explains Why It Took a Few Years to Make This Movie". Interview with Christina Radish, collider.com. June 25, 2016.

• I always make mistakes and I always fix things up, as best I can, in the cutting room.

  Todd Solondz

  Mistake, Cutting, Rooms

  "'Wiener-Dog': Director Todd Solondz Explains Why It Took a Few Years to Make This Movie". Interview with Christina Radish, collider.com. June 25, 2016.

• I love working with actors. If you cast the right person in the right part at the right time, they make you look like a better writer and director than you really are.

  Todd Solondz

  Directors, Looks, Actors

  "'Wiener-Dog': Director Todd Solondz Explains Why It Took a Few Years to Make This Movie". Interview with Christina Radish, collider.com. June 25, 2016.

• So much of what a pet is about for us is that it becomes a vessel for yearnings, dreams, illusions, hopes and so forth. It's a projection of the ultimate innocence and purity. That's why it's hard to see a dog in its dogness. That's why, when some harm comes to a dog, it's much harder for an audience to deal with that, more so than dealing with harm that comes to a child or anything human.

  Todd Solondz

  Dream, Dog, Children

  "'Wiener-Dog': Director Todd Solondz Explains Why It Took a Few Years to Make This Movie". Interview with Christina Radish, collider.com. June 25, 2016.

• I love working with actors. I do.

  Todd Solondz

  Actors

  "'Wiener-Dog': Director Todd Solondz Explains Why It Took a Few Years to Make This Movie". Interview with Christina Radish, collider.com. June 25, 2016.

• When I go to the movies, I do like to see things that surprise me, a little bit, in ways that seem truthful to the world that we live in.

  Todd Solondz

  World, Littles, Way

  "'Wiener-Dog': Director Todd Solondz Explains Why It Took a Few Years to Make This Movie". Interview with Christina Radish, collider.com. June 25, 2016.

• Compromise is part and parcel of making a movie. It's a question of the kinds of compromises that you have to make.

  Todd Solondz

  Compromise, Kind, Parcel

  Source: www.interviewmagazine.com

• Artwork can be a portal, a kind of rethinking and reseeing of the world as we live it.

  Todd Solondz

  World, Portal, Kind

  Source: www.interviewmagazine.com

• Art has a smaller audience than, say, movies or other forms of mass consumption. But that doesn't mean the work doesn't have an impact in a way that transcends just a few cultural arbiters.

  Todd Solondz

  Art, Mean, Impact

  Source: www.interviewmagazine.com

• I don't make movies with the idea that people are going to walk out of them feeling comfortable or better about themselves or more secure in their own biases or opinions.

  Todd Solondz

  Ideas, People, Feelings

  Source: www.believermag.com

• What makes me angry is the idea that people would be going to a movie because of what I said about it. It makes me feel, I don't know, arrogant, self-important, self-aggrandizing, whatever. Like I'm being used.

  Todd Solondz

  Self, Ideas, People

  Source: www.believermag.com

• I've always said that I myself am not the best audience for my own work, because I'm just not that receptive to comedy.

  Todd Solondz

  Comedy, Said, Audience

  Source: www.believermag.com

• There can be a blurry line between laughing at the expense of a character and laughing at the recognition of something painful and true. But blurry as it may be, it is nevertheless unmistakable, and sometimes the laughter I hear makes me wince.

  Todd Solondz

  Laughter, Character, Laughing

  "Q&A: Todd Solondz talks inspiration for new movie 'Dark Horse'". Interview with Daily Bruin, dailybruin.com. July 29, 2012.