Sam Mendes Says

Actors get pigeonholed very quickly, particularly movie actors. In the theater, one is more used to casting people against type and trusting that their talent and skill will get them through.
Sam Mendes

All I know is that I operate by going out to each of them and trying to learn the territory in which they operate. My language to each of them has to suit their brain.
Sam Mendes

As a first-time director in America, I feel I've been very fortunate.
Sam Mendes

Directing, I realize, on film is far more personal, you know. Cinema really is a director's medium. This is a very personal film.
Sam Mendes

For me, certain shots or scenes are keys in the movie.
Sam Mendes

I deliberately, in a way, went for something that was a huge challenge and was a big period film. I was excited about the canvas on which I could tell the story as much as the story itself.
Sam Mendes

I don't think good and evil are polarized.
Sam Mendes

I don't think of it as a competition - which might surprise you, given the way movies are reported constantly.
Sam Mendes

I like throwing snowballs at small children.
Sam Mendes

I still can't quite believe it. Although there was something about the fact that it was a first-time writer, a first-time producer, and a first-time director all at the same time.
Sam Mendes

I think movies are a director's medium in the end. Theater is the actor's medium. Theater is fast, and enjoyable, and truly rewarding. I believe in great live performance.
Sam Mendes

I think with Blair Witch and The Sixth Sense, people are much more open to something that is different.
Sam Mendes

I want to try and work in different genres with different types of actors, on small movies and big movies.
Sam Mendes

I wanted to keep exploring... I'm not about to choose a series of movies in which I can use the same bag of tricks and style that I used in the first film.
Sam Mendes

I'm certainly getting a lot more mail... that's basically it.
Sam Mendes

If you lived through the shooting of Jaws, you can live through anything.
Sam Mendes

It took me a long time to film the plastic bag, and then I had to get the cut of the scene right. But if you find it as beautiful as the character does, then suddenly it becomes a different movie, and so did he as a character.
Sam Mendes

It's a risk casting anyone against type or what they're known to do. But there's one thing better than having a great actor, which is having a great actor who's never done what you're asking him to do. He's hungry to get out of the trailer every day and hungry to test himself.
Sam Mendes

Just because I hold a shot for more than five seconds and it's all a deliberate tableau, people say it's theater. It's not really.
Sam Mendes

Kevin and Annette... I wanted them to do it together. They clearly wanted to work with each other.
Sam Mendes

Now I'm back home, living in London, running my theater. I just want to enjoy all that.
Sam Mendes

One movie is only one movie. I want to have a lifetime of making films.
Sam Mendes

One of the reasons I loved working with Tom is people feel they know who he is... I think working with an actor who the audience already has a relationship with actually helps you in a film like this.
Sam Mendes

Thank God I don't live in Los Angeles. I think if you're there the whole time it just gets out of proportion and you lose touch completely with reality.
Sam Mendes

The characters are trapped within the lifestyle. It's about what goes on before the movie starts.
Sam Mendes

The movies that influenced me were movies that told their stories through pictures more than words.
Sam Mendes

The perceived wisdom is that people do not go in large numbers to black-and-white movies anymore - which is a great shame, but I'd love to make a black-and-white movie one day.
Sam Mendes

There's good and bad in everybody. I wasn't looking for the good, or looking for the bad. This is a man who signed his pact with the devil 20 years ago, and he's learned to live with it. He's tried to protect his family from it.
Sam Mendes

There's one thing better than having a great actor, and that's having a great actor who's never done this kind of role before and is hungry to do it. They're testing themselves every day. They want to get out of their trailer and get to work.
Sam Mendes

This is the first time in 10 years I don't know what I'm doing next, and I'm rather enjoying it. Soon I'll be climbing the walls no doubt, but right now, it's not clear, I'm just enjoying the freedom.
Sam Mendes

Truly great actors carry their characters in silence with them. They communicate without words the relationships that predate the movie.
Sam Mendes

When I drive through a field, I want to see green grass sometimes, and I don't want to see black and white.
Sam Mendes

You freeze with the number of opportunities given to you and just decide to do nothing at all.
Sam Mendes

You just never know when movies are going to take off or not. The lucky thing about this was that it didn't cost a lot of money, and therefore there wasn't loads of pressure on me.
Sam Mendes

You think about taking audiences on a journey.
Sam Mendes

You're in the lap of the gods. If people go, they go, and if they don't.
Sam Mendes

You've got to believe as a filmmaker that if a movie's good enough, it's going to survive; and if it's not, well, it won't.
Sam Mendes

You've got to work. You've got to want an audience to sit forward in their chairs sometimes, rather than sit back and be bombarded with images.
Sam Mendes