Ricardo Montalban is to improvisational acting what Mount Rushmore is to animation.
An artist can accomplish anything provided he doesn't accept facts or defeat for more than a few minutes.
Art films aren't necessarily photography. It's feeling. If we can capture a feeling of a people of a way of life then we made a good picture.
I won't make shorthand films because I don't want to manipulate audiences into assuming quick manufactured truths.
The camera is the slave to the actor.
You can defeat fear through humor through pain through honesty bravery intuition and through love in the truest sense.
I'm not good at comparing and contrasting. I take what's in front of me for what it is although I guess there's something about Paul's realistic writing that is like Cassavetes.
No matter how old you get if you can keep the desire to be creative you're keeping the man-child alive.
I don't care about being on top about being No. 1. I just make movies for a few suckers in the audience anyway.
I'm a great believer in spontaneity because I think planning is the most destructive thing in the world.
We only have two hours to change people's lives.
People who are making films today are too concerned with mechanics - technical things instead of feeling.
Everyone who makes a film is at the major distributors' mercy.
I think I probably have the philosophy of a poor man. You know like maybe I'd steal the pennies off a dead man's eyes.
As an artist I feel that we must try many things - but above all we must dare to fail.
(Acting) is an extension of life. How you're capable of performing in your life that's how you're capable of performing on screen.
We don't take the time to be vulnerable with each other
Filmmaking is exploring. Why would I want to make a film about something I already understand?
You must be willing to risk everything to really express it all.
There is no reason why a serious film one about life can't be enjoyable maybe even fun. Emotions can be very entertaining you know. I try to use them generously in my films.
When I started making films I wanted to make Frank Capra pictures. But I`ve never been able to make anything but these crazy tough pictures. You are what you are.
The greatest location in the world is the human face.
You know as a director what you want but the film is smarter than you the film says no the film says there's something more here.
You can fail in films because you don't have the talent or you have too much humility or you lack ferociousness. I'm a gangster. If I want something I'll grab it.
People don't know what they are doing most of the time. They don't know what they want. It's only in 'the movies' that they know what their problems are and have game plans to deal with them.
The idea of love as a mysterious undiscovered world has come to have no place in our innermost imagination.
We have problems terrible problems but our problems are human problems.
Film is to me just unimportant. But people are very important.
I have a one-track mind. That's all that I'm interested in - love. And the lack of it. When it stops.
To me there is a name for each person. I think it's marvelous to have a name. A woman is not a woman. It's either Gena or my mother or some other person.