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What science-fiction premises do is it gives you a what-if prism to look at the contemporary world with a wack on the side of the head.

Alexander Payne

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Alexander Payne
Age: 63
Born: 1961
Born: February 10
Film Director
Film Producer
Screenwriter
Writer
Omaha
Nebraska
World
Contemporary
Gives
Fiction
Side
Head
Science
Wack
Look
Prism
Giving
Premises

More quotes by Alexander Payne

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I don't feel despair because I am able to make the films I want to make, and that gives me hope.
Alexander Payne
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Adult movies with any artistic credit are released in the last quarter of the year and expected to gird for battle for Globes and Oscars. So the films aren't being seen just for themselves, but rather in a competitive context.
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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.
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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.
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That's how I like to do it with actors, have them really go for it and I'll tell them when it's too much. It's always easier to bring it back then to push it further.
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A pitfall of making a comedy with a studio-and it's also an American cultural thing-is that I get tired of being encouraged to go always for laughs.
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In real life, I myself am kind of a rambling guy. I like to travel.
Alexander Payne
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The kindest thing a director can do is look with open eyes at everything.
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A book is a book, but a movie is a movie. The more faithful you are, the more you'll come up with Harry Potter #1 and #2, which are like filmed books on tape. They're so petrified of turning off the readers that they make no concessions to the fact that they're trying to make a piece of cinema.
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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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Forgiving yourself may be for many people, at least for myself, extremely difficult. And then in a larger context, I will say that I'm constantly astonished by those who pray daily, Forgive me my sins as I forgive those who sin against me, and beat very loudly the war drum.
Alexander Payne
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The worst thing for people to say about your movies is, Yeah, it was pretty good, but it was too damn long..
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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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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The biggest fear I have is to die with regrets, and of course that will come true.
Alexander Payne
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I'm hoping one day I can make one really good film.
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I like actors who, when you see them on screen, you sense a person, not just an actor.
Alexander Payne
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You just never know when you're living in a golden age.
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This is how good movies get made and always have: from the gut instinct of the financiers, not just by committee and research.
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I definitely in filmmaking more and more find writing and directing a means to harvest material for editing. It's all about editing.
Alexander Payne