Brett Ratner
Brett Ratner
Brett Ratneris an American film director, film producer, screenwriter, film editor, and music video director. He is known for directing the Rush Hour film series, The Family Man, Red Dragon, X-Men: The Last Stand, and Tower Heist. He was also a producer on the Fox drama series, Prison Break, as well as the comedy Horrible Bosses and its 2014 sequel...
NationalityAmerican
ProfessionDirector
Date of Birth28 March 1969
CityMiami Beach, FL
CountryUnited States of America
I've watched 'Being There' over 50 times, and every time I watch it, I love every frame. I just wish I had directed it myself.
I've been a book collector since I was young, since I was a kid.
I learn more from the audience than I can from anybody else. Not from what they write on the scorecards, but how they respond to the movie while they're watching it - where they laugh and where they react.
You can't show a four-hour movie in a theater, really.
People can criticise all day long, I think I've proven myself, I think I deliver. And I agree, box office does not mean a movie's good, but I feel like I'm making good movies and I'm delivering in box office.
There's no greater feeling than people coming up to me and going, "Man, my father was dying, and we went to see Rush Hour, and it was the greatest night we had in years together. We sat in that theater and we laughed for two hours without stopping. That was just a great memory that I had before my father died."
Miami Beach - that's where I grew up, in a middle-class Jewish family led by my maternal grandfather. Me, my great-grandmother - a Holocaust survivor, who was my roommate - my grandparents, my mom and her brother all shared a four-bedroom house.
They say your childhood influences your tastes and interests, or your approach if you're an artist. So what you create, whatever you saw, whatever your childhood was like - it influences how you're going to end up.
My movies are pretty tight and they're pretty well-paced. I'm not one to make long movies. I don't dwell on stuff.
There's no difference between a tacky Jew from Miami and a rap star. They both want the Cadillac and the Rolex with the diamonds.
When I was 13, Eddie Murphy was to me what Chris Tucker was to 13-year-olds when I made 'Rush Hour.' And 'Rush Hour' really came out of the fact that I grew up watching 'Beverly Hills Cop' and '48 Hrs.'
Woody Allen is in his '70s and he's making movies, so I look forward to getting there.
You can't reinvent the wheel. You've got to just take the best from all the other shows and try to make it work, because there's the "live show Gods" that dictate if there are going to be any surprises, if there's a very commercial film that's a Best Picture. There are a lot of things that are out of my control, but I do my best.
Producing is making films without having to work sometimes. It's still making films, but it's a different job.