That's how you get a performance - they put trust in you.

It was 1978 when Superman came out, and I kept thinking, Why don't they do something about it? They've done all these crappy attempts at comic book film adaptations. What can we do different? Why don't we just re-release this thing?

Soon it's all going to be digital anyway. It's all going to be saved on a little coin somewhere.

It was the beginning of film for television. So we had all of these great opportunities. Northwestern was probably the only major film school of its kind at the time that was graduating anybody important.

People say, You paid your dues, but I never paid any dues. It's always been a great trip.

With The Omen, I really felt I wasn't in control. It was panic.

I was painting sets, working in editorial as an assistant, driving their trucks, lying that I knew how to drive a truck, and doing commercials and documentaries.

It was just the thrill of a lifetime. Brando and Hackman were two of my heroes.

When you make a film, you like to run it with an audience. They tell you you're narrow-minded or subjective, or that seems too long, or that doesn't work.

It's developing a relationship with actors that makes it work.

Some actors just won't bend, and then it's a bitch. You either fight or find ways of putting your words in their mouth and letting them say it back at you.

I was very lucky. I started my own commercial company.

I realized what you could do in motion pictures by surrounding yourself with geniuses.

I was really disappointed that Warner Bros. didn't think highly enough of my film or my filmmaking to ask me to make the new Superman.

When I was doing half-hour shows, I loved it and was preparing myself for the hour shows. Then when I did the hour shows, I was preparing myself for the specials and features.

In motion pictures, the actor rules. The camera served the actor.

I've always wanted to do a Crichton book. I really love his writing.

It's only been a couple of times in my life that I've really locked horns with actors. It did not hurt the films, it just hurt the moment of the filmmaking.

I was tweaked by the idea of Superman immediately.

Working with Christopher, he convinced me he could fly, and he's convinced me he's going to walk again.

That's how you get a performance - they put trust in you.

Superman was never previewed because the producers didn't trust Warners with the film.

If you had the opportunity and some talent, there was no way you couldn't progress, because it was an open market. There was the advertising world, and there was the documentary world.

I'm open to comments. I'm open to objective points of view, because I've been very narrow and very subjective.

How was I going to make a man fly? How was I going to convince the public that an actor could fly?

I was an actor... or, at least, I was trying to be an actor.

When when my first feature opportunity came along, I wasn't prepared, but we did it in about 17 days.

First cuts are a bitch for a director, because it's been so many months and you put your trust in your editor and you're going to see your film assembled for the first time. You look at it and go, This is terrible. I hate it.

I had life threats, because people accused me of approaching Brando as God and his son was Jesus. I literally had people saying my blood would run in the streets for doing that.

I think what some people are doing with effects is starting to get silly. It's overused.

If you give it good concentration, good energy, good heart and good performance, the song will play you.

Firms would be given initial entitlements to gross markup on the basis of past performance. These entitlements would be transferable and a market in them would be developed.

Humans are imperfect. That's one of the reasons that classical and jazz are in trouble. We're on the quest for the perfect performance and every note has to be right. Man, every note is not right in life.

And at the same time, you are of course a performer, but it's very important that you understand that your role as a performer is to get the best performance from those wonderful colleagues that you have the chance to work with.

To boast of a performance which I cannot beat is merely stupid vanity. And if I can beat it that means there is nothing special about it. What has passed is already finished with. What I find more interesting is what is still to come.

The next day I was in my school's production of All My Sons. This was the performance where I realized something was happening between me and the audience that I hadn't recognized before.

From protecting our natural resources to providing maritime security and national defense, the Coast Guard's duties are broad in scope, and the performance of those duties has never been more important.

To vote is like the payment of a debt, a duty never to be neglected, if its performance is possible.

I think my expectations for myself are much more severe and much more direct. You can't work on a film for six years without being your own toughest critic. So you can't really be distracted by the expectations based on your previous performance.

Unless an entire row of people got up in the middle of a performance and left the theater in disgust, I felt as though I hadn't done my job.

I'd also like to do a play. I've never done theater, and constantly changing and refining a performance is something I'd like to do, even though it may sound like work to some people - and it probably is work.

What comprises good performance? The ability through singing or playing to make the ear conscious of the true content and affect of a composition.

I always want to do things that are different. I don't want to be doing the same thing, the same performance constantly, and it feels like most people tell you that they are the same. However different you feel might approach them.

I've done scenes in films that I felt like the performance was better in certain takes, but they couldn't use them because it didn't match what the person was doing when they came around and the camera was on them.

I am always more interested in performance and character depiction, and my direction says as much.

Did you know I staged the first performance in America of At the Hawk's Well?

An arts education helps build academic skills and increase academic performance, while also providing alternative opportunities to reward the skills of children who learn differently.

What kind of morons do you have working at newspapers in Austin that would base an entire review of an artist's performance on whether or not they had a good seat?

What does my performance have to do with Russell Crowe's? Nothing. If I play Gladiator and we all play Gladiator with Ridley Scott in the same amount of time, maybe we have a chance to see who did it best.