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Acting is a lot easier than people think it is.

Alexander Payne

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Alexander Payne
Age: 63
Born: 1961
Born: February 10
Film Director
Film Producer
Screenwriter
Writer
Omaha
Nebraska
Easier
Acting
Think
Thinking
People

More quotes by Alexander Payne

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Cinema really lends itself well to big, archetypal stories, you know, classic old stories and you need kind of a weird, big terrain like the Japanese plains for Samurai movies or the West. You need that for these giants to walk around.
Alexander Payne
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Just because I make films doesn't mean I think they're great. I just make them and then when I'm done with them I'm just a filmgoer like I always am. They're all lessons. I'm still in film school, honestly. And this one is just a dry run for whatever the next one is.
Alexander Payne
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When you're a houseguest and you leave, it's nice to straighten something up or send your hosts a useful gift. And when you leave the planet, it's nice to have made a positive contribution.
Alexander Payne
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I spend a long time casting, but once I've cast a film there's a reason why I selected those people. So I'm hands-on in selecting the cast, hands-off to see what they do with their characters, and hands-on again to offer suggestions.
Alexander Payne
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Even if we die at 100, we're still dying young. I want at least 700 years. There's a lot of travelling and books to read and movies to see. I'm not going to squeeze it all in in 85 years.
Alexander Payne
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I like voice-over in films, and most of my films have been voice-over films.
Alexander Payne
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I'm hoping one day I can make one really good film.
Alexander Payne
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There is an audience out there for literate films - slower, more observant, more human films, and they deserve to be made.
Alexander Payne
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A lot of documentaries have been made very quickly, but I think they're like frogs in an ecosystem: They're harbingers. Film is always two or three years behind, because it takes so long to write a script, get financing, and get it made. It just takes a while. But I think it's coming. It has to.
Alexander Payne
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I'm attracted to short screenplays. Nobody really wants a film to be over two hours, or at least I don't.
Alexander Payne
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A lot of people get stuck, like, Oh, if it's made by a studio, it can't be independent. Often they link it to the source of financing, or how it's distributed, but I don't really know how you can. A filmmaker will take his money from anywhere. It doesn't matter.
Alexander Payne
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Somewhat dramatic things happen, and you don't even always notice them — that's what life is.
Alexander Payne
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Each one of my movies becomes easier to get off the ground.
Alexander Payne
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I still have energy and some degree of youth, which is what a filmmaker needs.
Alexander Payne
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Hollywood films have become a cesspool of formula and it's up to us to try to change it... I feel like a preacher! But it's really true. I feel personally responsible for the future of American cinema. Me personally.
Alexander Payne
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In the moment of making films, I want to share my observations of life, not of other films.
Alexander Payne
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I've always approached screenplays and so forth with, How would it really happen? Not What's the movie version? but What's the real-life version? Then I just follow my nose.
Alexander Payne
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I always wanted 'Sideways' to be like a great 1960s Italian film.
Alexander Payne
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I think cynicism lasts. Sentimentality ages, dates quickly.
Alexander Payne
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Marketing has supplanted story as the primary force behind the worthiness of making a film, and that's a very sad thing. It's film only as a function of consumerism rather than as an important component of our culture, and that's everywhere around the world.
Alexander Payne