Latest Curtis Hanson Quotes from Interviews

Quotes about:

• There are many people who want to make movies and very few opportunities for them to do it. I had a checkered early career with a lot of very unhappy experiences where pictures got taken away, re-cut, re-titled... all the nightmares one hears about. Consequently, it's so gratifying to then make a picture that's successful and gives you leverage to have better circumstances than you've ever had, before the next time out.

  Curtis Hanson

  Taken, Successful, Opportunity

  Source: www.avclub.com

• I was never a critic. I was a journalist and wrote about filmmakers, but I didn't review movies per se. I make that distinction only because I came to it strictly as someone who was just a lover of storytellers and cinematic storytellers. And I still am. I'm still a great movie fan, and I ,that love of movies is very much alive in me. I approach the movies I make as a movie-lover as much as a movie-maker.

  Curtis Hanson

  Lovers, Filmmaker, Critics

  Source: www.avclub.com

• I never intended to have a career as a journalist, writing about people who make movies. I did it as something that was really rewarding to do, given the opportunity to express myself about something I cared about, and also to learn a lot by watching filmmakers I admired. In a sense, it was my film school. After doing it for a few years, I decided that the time had come to get it together and do some work of my own. Even for a cheap movie, you need film stock and equipment and actors. Whereas to write, all you need is paper and an idea, so I felt that writing might be my stepping stone.

  Curtis Hanson

  Writing, School, Opportunity

  Source: www.avclub.com

• Having done several of them and also loving other kinds of movies, I'm also tougher on suspense stories in terms of finding one that really excites and surprises me.

  Curtis Hanson

  Suspense, Stories, Done

  Source: www.avclub.com

• I very much had wanted to do a picture with more humor than what I had been allowed to do earlier, which is what attracted me to Wonder Boys so much. I found it funny in a very serious way, which is the best kind of comedy.

  Curtis Hanson

  Boys, Way, Serious

  Source: www.avclub.com

• Movie stars exaggerate certain things to let the audience know they're just playing a character, as if they're saying, "Look at me, I'm not really an old man, I'm just playing one." Or "I'm not really a homosexual, I'm just playing a gay character. Or an alcoholic. Or somebody who's mentally impaired." They often do it very successfully and win awards for it.

  Curtis Hanson

  Stars, Character, Gay

  Source: www.avclub.com

• I love suspense movies, because in a sense they're the most dreamlike of any genre, and I'm sure I'll make another one.

  Curtis Hanson

  Suspense, Genre

  Source: www.avclub.com

• From my point of view, when I was thinking about the prospect of [Michael Douglas] in this part, I wondered if he would go all the way with it. The reason I was concerned is that, oftentimes, actors - especially movie stars - when they're playing a character who might be perceived as unattractive or eccentric, will wink at the audience while they're doing it.

  Curtis Hanson

  Stars, Character, Thinking

  Source: www.avclub.com

• What I try to do is give each actor an environment in which they can do their best work.

  Curtis Hanson

  Giving, Trying, Actors

  Source: www.avclub.com

• I can't speak to how Michael [Douglas] approached it in terms of his process.

  Curtis Hanson

  Speak, Process, Term

  Source: www.avclub.com

• I thought, "If I could bring these characters [Wonder Boys] to life and lead the audience to react the same way I did, this could be a really special picture." Then I read Michael's [Chabon] novel and got even more enthusiastic about it.

  Curtis Hanson

  Character, Boys, Special

  Source: www.avclub.com

• Most scripts are so linear and simplistic in their plotline.

  Curtis Hanson

  Scripts, Linear

  Source: www.avclub.com

• Here [in Wonder Boys] I had this group of characters where you didn't know which were the important ones or what direction they were heading.

  Curtis Hanson

  Character, Boys, Important

  Source: www.avclub.com

• Even though L.A Confidential box-office was a fraction of, say, Titanic or the Grinch movie, it finds its audience and will continue doing so for who knows how long, because of the basic thing we love about movies, which is storytelling and performances.

  Curtis Hanson

  Long, Office, Storytelling

  Source: www.avclub.com

• The challenge was the opportunity. When I read the first draft of Steve Kloves' fabulous adaptation - I hadn't read [Michael] Chabon's book at that time - what I was immediately captivated by was this group of characters that were at once so engaging and so messed up.

  Curtis Hanson

  Book, Character, Opportunity

  Source: www.avclub.com

• So it's discouraging and, yet, when you make a movie like Wonder Boys, in a sense it's its own reward, because it does move people, it gets great reviews, and it becomes part of that library of movies that exist out there. As time goes by, it will find its audience.

  Curtis Hanson

  Moving, Boys, People

  Source: www.avclub.com

• A day doesn't go by when I don't get a compliment on L.A. Confidential, for example.

  Curtis Hanson

  Example, Compliment, Confidential

  Source: www.avclub.com

• What you care about [movie] is whether it's moving you, or whether you're caught up in it.

  Curtis Hanson

  Moving, Care, Caught

  Source: www.avclub.com

• Now, grosses are listed in the newspapers and on television like it's a sporting event. It's ridiculous, because when you're watching a movie, unless you're an investor in the movie or a stockholder in the studio, what do you care how much it's grossing or how much it cost or any of that stuff?

  Curtis Hanson

  Events, Cost, Television

  Source: www.avclub.com

• The bigger problem still is that it determines in many ways what movies get made in the first place. Because as sources of finance are considering a project, they ask themselves, "Does this lend itself to a simplistic marketing approach which will guarantee a big opening weekend?" As a movie-goer, I think that's tragic, because when you look back at those movies that made us fall in love with movies in the first place, most of them were not high-concept, and most of them would not have "won their weekend."

  Curtis Hanson

  Falling In Love, Weekend, Thinking

  Source: www.avclub.com

• I don't think of the marketplace as teen-oriented or teen-dominated. I think of it as dominated by high-concept, in marketing especially.

  Curtis Hanson

  Thinking, Marketing, Marketplace

  Source: www.avclub.com

• Consequently, pictures are aimed at certain audiences, whether it be a teen comedy or an action movie or whatever. It's unfortunate, because while it may lead to big opening grosses, a lot of pictures that are a little different and don't fit so neatly into either a niche market or a high-concept marketing approach can get lost in the shuffle. That's one unfortunate thing.

  Curtis Hanson

  Unfortunate Things, Marketing, Different

  Source: www.avclub.com

• Pittsburgh has this rich industrial past, when it was the heart of the U.S. steel industry, and it burned out as the industry burned out and moved elsewhere.

  Curtis Hanson

  Heart, Past, Steel

  Source: www.avclub.com

• So the city [Pittsburgh] was faced with that question of "What to do now?" because it can't turn back the clock and be what it once was. So thematically, it seemed like the perfect location for the movie. And then, it's a matter of how we get that feeling into the picture and make it a part of [Michael] Chabon's story.

  Curtis Hanson

  Cities, Perfect, Feelings

  Source: www.avclub.com

• When I first went to Pittsburgh, I had never been there before, and we hadn't even decided to shoot there yet. I just went to see the location of Michael Chabon's novel. Once there, I became aware that Pittsburgh is a "wonder boy," in the narrow sense of the term, just as the human characters are.

  Curtis Hanson

  Character, Boys, Pittsburgh

  Source: www.avclub.com