Sam Mendes
Sam Mendes
Samuel Alexander "Sam" Mendes, CBE is an English stage and film director. He is best known for directing the comedy-drama film American Beauty, which earned him the Academy Award and Golden Globe Award for Best Director, the crime film Road to Perdition, and the James Bond films Skyfalland Spectre. He also is known for dark re-inventions of the stage musicals Cabaret, Oliver!, Company, and Gypsy. He directed an original stage musical for the first time with Charlie and the Chocolate...
NationalityBritish
ProfessionDirector
Date of Birth1 August 1965
Shooting action is very, very meticulous, it's increments, tiny little pieces.
If you lived through the shooting of Jaws, you can live through anything.
I've directed bits of action and so I know that it's long and it's very detailed. Editing action is a good deal more exciting than shooting action. Shooting action is very, very meticulous, it's increments, tiny little pieces.
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.
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.
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.
When I drive through a field, I want to see green grass sometimes, and I don't want to see black and white.
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.
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.
Kevin and Annette... I wanted them to do it together. They clearly wanted to work with each other.
I want to inspire, and be inspired.
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.
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.
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.