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
You can't show a four-hour movie in a theater, really.
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.
Do I have a small movie in me? Yeah, probably, when I'm 60. But I'm not Hal Ashby, I'm not Roman Polanski. I'm true to myself. Whether you like it or not.
My mom had me when she was 16, and I was an only child, which is probably why I received a lot of love and didn't miss that my father wasn't around.
At the end of the day, audiences just want to laugh and be entertained. They want to escape from their reality, and that's why we make movies, to get people to escape from the realities.
Producing is making films without having to work sometimes. It's still making films, but it's a different job.
I love everything black, because black is cool. When something crosses over, people are like, "Oh, this is a crossover." First of all, there is no urban anymore. Pop culture is black. White kids are dressing like black kids. It's all crossed the lines now. The way I understand it is, everything black is cool. When it crosses over to white, that means it's going from cool to uncool. That's what crossover is.
When you're the director, you kinda do all the work.
Woody Allen is in his '70s and he's making movies, so I look forward to getting there.
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.'
I ask my assistants if they're retarded all the time. When the camera is on you, of course, actors have the ability to make it real. For me, if I'm not talking, it is a problem. I have so much more respect for actors after being in front of the camera, and I realize that the hardest part is when you're not talking. Listening is harder than just acting. Listening is the hardest part.
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.
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.
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.