I never overestimate the audience, nor do I underestimate them. I just have a very rational idea as to who we’re dealing with, and that we’re not making a picture for Harvard Law School.
BILLY WILDERI never overestimate the audience, nor do I underestimate them. I just have a very rational idea as to who we’re dealing with, and that we’re not making a picture for Harvard Law School.
BILLY WILDERNow, what is it which makes a scene interesting? If you see a man coming through a doorway, it means nothing. If you see him coming through a window – that is at once interesting.
BILLY WILDERI just always think, ‘Do I like it?’ And if I like it, maybe other people will come and like it too.
BILLY WILDERWe’re making a picture for middle-class people, the people that you see on the subway, or the people that you see in a restaurant. Just normal people.
BILLY WILDERShoot a few scenes out of focus. I want to win the foreign film award.
BILLY WILDERMarilyn was mean. Terribly mean. The meanest woman I have ever met around this town. I have never met anybody as mean as Marilyn Monroe or as utterly fabulous on the screen.
BILLY WILDERThe best director is the one you don’t see.
BILLY WILDERFilm’s thought of as a director’s medium because the director creates the end product that appears on the screen. It’s that stupid auteur theory again, that the director is the author of the film. But what does the director shoot-the telephone book?
BILLY WILDERMy English is a mixture between Arnold Schwarzenegger and Archbishop Tutu.
BILLY WILDERJerry: Oh, you don’t understand, Osgood! Ehhhh… I’m a man. Osgood: Well, nobody’s perfect.
BILLY WILDERLove is the hardest thing in the world to write about. So simple. You’ve got to catch it through details, like the early morning sunlight hitting the gray tin of the rain spout in front of her house.
BILLY WILDERI had one life. And what did I do? Wasted it in some palooka preliminaries in Spain, just before Hitler and Chamberlain warm up for the main event.
BILLY WILDERWe are on the track of something absolutely mediocre.
BILLY WILDERYou’re as good as the best thing you’ve ever done.
BILLY WILDERYou know, that stuff about pink elephants, that’s the bunk. It’s little animals. Little tiny turkeys in straw hats. Midget monkeys coming through the keyholes.
BILLY WILDERWriters became much more important when sound came in, but they’ve had to put up a valiant fight to get the credit they deserve.
BILLY WILDER