“But you really – I always think that a director has got to adapt to whatever the needs of the actor are. You know, so if you take someone like Eddie Murphy, who is not a big fan of rehearsal.”

Problems emerge and some people try to sweep them under the rug.

I’m a horrible public speaker.

The thing I’ve noticed about life is that it just keeps coming at you. And it can be a real bummer. What you need to remember is that you’re not alone.

You know he comes out of stand-up. He comes – it’s all about capturing the moment – in the moment, you know.

In Hollywood through the 50s, there were black, English, and Middle European housekeepers and maids.

Kinsey was six foot five, and he had this leader of men quality.

We’re still pushing it, you know. It is weird. Suddenly you wake up and it’s like, ‘God, five years have gone by.

Kinsey thought that Freud in his own way was as dangerous as the Catholic Church.

Our relationships, relationships between adults, how all those pieces fit together – that’s the most complicated thing we all face.

So I never thought of anything as making fun of it, but kind of reveling in the melodrama of it. It’s a melodrama.

It’s in the nature of television to restrain the spontaneity of a live event. Things become more and more prepackaged.

Kinsey would identify himself with Galileo in moments of feelings of persecution.

But the imposition of morality onto science, – where it does not belong – has become rampant in recent years.

There’s no question that Whale’s movies are classics. They were wonderful, and successful.

That day I think we really saw each other for the first time. I mean, saw beyond the bag of bones on the outside. You take away her pretty and my plain and what you get underneath is about the same: a couple of lost girls looking to be found.

I do think that’s so much a part of what being a director is – in working with actors – to really try and be sensitive to what each actor needs to get to where he wants to be.

You’ve got to be flexible. Directors do a massive amount of planning and homework, and if after all that your director decides to throw it all out of the window and shoot spontaneously, then you must follow his lead.

I think filmmaking should be a wonderfully free collaborative process, and it so very rarely is. I often see directors as jailers of my talent.

Nowadays, there are seven music directors in one film. I had never heard of such a thing before. If one of our old music directors was told to share a score with others, he would have left the assignment.

Being a good director is knowing sometimes when not to say something.

If you’re a movie actor, you’re on your own – you cannot control the stage. The director controls it.

Many casting directors won’t hire aspiring actors because you might be burning some chick’s headshot under the table so she doesn’t get the part.

Karan Johar is absolutely an amazing director. I dream to work with Karan.

If you have a script that’s not great, if you have a great director, you can make a great movie, but if you have a great script with a director who’s not good, never are you going to have a good movie.