Latest Peter Weir Quotes from Interviews

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• I've done a number of things that get categories closed off in a way, so when I read 'The Long Walk' by Slavomir Rawicz and decided to do film, 'I thought, you know, this is going to be wonderful,' two and a half years, three years, whatever it was.

  Peter Weir

  Long, Done, Wonderful

  Source: www.indiewire.com

• I always thought the editor should cut the film and so I'll come in and look at the movie. Just because that's the only way I can really see the ideas of the editor, it's really working together. Yes it's a hierarchy, yes I'm the boss, but I like to see and to think about the idea, and it's about us asking, 'do we have to say that?' and, 'how do we make it there?' So it's advising the editor, it's very give and take, it's very free, but in the end, it's wonderful once you get through the first couple of cuts.

  Peter Weir

  Couple, Cutting, Thinking

  Source: www.indiewire.com

• I love stories and I don't like to repeat myself. And I look for new stuff, and as they say it gets harder.

  Peter Weir

  Love Story

  Source: www.indiewire.com

• In terms of how I work with actors, having worked so heavily on the script I have a very clear idea of the characters; they are reasonably well illustrated in the script. If you cast it right, to a great degree you can hand it over to the actor and I just make suggestions. I'm not the kind of director who needs or wants to get into too much finessing. Ideally, when you hit the set, you have this conversation, like, 'eh, what did you think?' 'I don't know, what did you think?' 'Why don't we just try it again, make a few physical changes.'

  Peter Weir

  Character, Thinking, Trying

  Source: www.indiewire.com

• Casting the right actor for the right part is some unspoken thing between the two of you to communicate.

  Peter Weir

  Communicate

  Source: www.indiewire.com

• I love a chance to shoot real locations, because in films in the earlier days before people traveled as much, it was exotic to see a film set in Switzerland, and that area has been taken over by CGI, mostly, and fantasy landscapes. It's unusual to see this much landscape, people say it's old fashioned. So what you're referring to is there was that period in the '50s and '60s when there were epics and you saw landscape.

  Peter Weir

  Real, Taken, Epic

  Source: www.indiewire.com

• Sixty-five days principle photography, five-day weeks, which is the only way I'll work. With my cinematographer Russell Boyd, we take as much time as possible before pre-production, looking at stills. The next most important thing: he will come to me and talk about lenses. And I'll see his plan, which is generally great, and I might talk about how the light will be, handheld or not? I talk very freely, and try not to talk specifically, just talk around it, because it can unlock all sorts of things.

  Peter Weir

  Photography, Important, Trying

  Source: www.indiewire.com

• With war and famine and flood and special effects films, when you do somebody under duress, you have to be really be inventive and the risk of keeping it very simple is you might loose some of the audience because it's not overt, it's hidden, not coming at you. Then you might cut through to some of this numbness and reach something profound and tragic.

  Peter Weir

  War, Cutting, Simple

  Source: www.indiewire.com

• Various studios are still shooting on film with digital grain and the DI negatives, it's not ideal. We should really be all film or all digital. But that being said, the old way of graining in the camera, now you can make changes like a painter. It's dangerous because you can ruin the film, you can over-fiddle. We've all seen films and gone 'what the hell is that?'

  Peter Weir

  Film, Hell, Making Changes

  Source: www.indiewire.com

• The smallest detail can contribute to the whole, I think particularly with emotion, you want it to be as authentic as it can, whether its a artifact or a theatrical event. But the whole is the sum of so many images.

  Peter Weir

  Thinking, Emotion, Theatrical

  Source: www.indiewire.com

• Anybody I'd spoken to who'd been in Siberia said 'would you please put mosquitos in your film,' that's what everybody knows about, they're big and they're nasty.

  Peter Weir

  Nasty, Film

  Source: www.indiewire.com

• What we love that 'The Way Back' is not subsidized, it's alive and kicking. And if I can't make the kind of film that I want to make, then the hell with it, I've had a great run. But I'm more concerned with the younger people coming up that want to make this kind of film.

  Peter Weir

  Running, People, Kind

  Source: www.indiewire.com

• Studios are attracted by making money, and they're also trying to simplify things, going with the genre thing. The gambling instincts of a few years ago where you might make some thousands or a few hundred, it's nothing now.

  Peter Weir

  Trying, Making Money, Instinct

  Source: www.indiewire.com

• You get very little from the studios anymore, it's all independent. And I think the studio, with the exception of something like The Social Network, a fine film, very interesting, but as for studio pictures, that's it, what else? There was more only a few years ago. So it changes, and I'm trying as much as I can.

  Peter Weir

  Independent, Thinking, Interesting

  Source: www.indiewire.com

• I think Ed Harris is a conscious screen actor, so I think it was strong, it was like he put everything together somehow in 'The Way Back'. He likes, I don't want to say the method approach, because that's not really necessarily his way of working, but it was easy to do because of the location. He'd go off by himself, and they would make things.

  Peter Weir

  Strong, Thinking, Together

  Source: www.indiewire.com

• There's such a deep, conservative feeling in 'The way Back.' You go, 'gosh, we've gotten narrow.' So at the moment I think there's a kind of tension, and it's gold rush fever.

  Peter Weir

  Thinking, Feelings, Gold

  Source: www.indiewire.com

• It's spiritual, a man that has a past and regrets, but you can as a director take a shot, and there's something in the eyes and the face, you just can't fake it, you can't teach it, and I think Ed Harris has that quality.

  Peter Weir

  Spiritual, Regret, Eye

  Source: www.indiewire.com

• I'm not from a theatre background, I'm wary of rehearsals. But what I do like is hanging out together, on location.

  Peter Weir

  Theatre, Together, Hanging Out

  Source: www.indiewire.com

• Ed Harris seemed to be as a man, it seems, like a Clint Eastwood, this country is one that has produced more than one of this kind of man that's iconic and enormously appealing to the world, as part of American film culture.

  Peter Weir

  Country, Men, World

  Source: www.indiewire.com

• In 'The Way Back' survivors were all ordinary people, and that's the whole point, that's who I felt these people should be, and they shouldn't be that hero that stands out.

  Peter Weir

  Hero, People, Survivor

  Source: www.indiewire.com

• Casting is always critical but in this case, 'The Way Back', I was looking internationally to a degree for an interesting mix of gentlemen, Irish, Polish, Russian and American. Not many people had the qualifications, people who would play the game, particular to this industry. So I had to research amongst the cast. They had to be very very prepared as we had to start shooting as soon as we could, there wasn't any time to talk, and there would only be three or four takes.

  Peter Weir

  People, Interesting, Gentleman

  Source: www.indiewire.com

• I became obsessed with the true stuff, and that led to shaping 'The Way Back' screenplay somewhat toward a minimalist style, to avoid free-hanging moments, and to hold the music back, so it would never lead you to an emotion, and to try to make the emotions as real as I could.

  Peter Weir

  Real, Style, Trying

  Source: www.indiewire.com

• If I can't make the kind of film that I want to make, then the hell with it.

  Peter Weir

  Kind, Film, Hell

  Source: www.indiewire.com

• I had always been wary of doing any autobiographical movies, truly feeling at home with fiction.

  Peter Weir

  Home, Feelings

  Source: www.indiewire.com