Cary Fukunaga Quotes

There's nothing better than finishing something and looking at it. Whether it be a script or a movie, it's this complete little thing that now exists and is hopefully immortal.

It's an important part of being a member of society to know what's happening in the world and to know where you fall in it and what you can do about it.

My mind is in so many different places while we're shooting. Part of it is watching the performance, part of it is watching the camera, and part of it is thinking about the stuff that we have to get that day. It's always a pleasure watching, but you also take it for granted, when you're on the actual grind, making the show.

When you know you have a certain amount of work to finish, you just don't allow yourself to get sick again.

I'm pretty hard to impress, and I'm pretty exacting, in terms of what I want from my props department and art department. We spend many, many hours going over visual research and finding the right artists to create the material.

I think it's a fascinating thing to see how lonely people are in this world and what they're looking for. It's a universal concept. So, it's something that interests me and I'll probably revisit it if I get the chance to do the child soldier film because I think it's one of the most important scripts I've written. It's just too dark to do as a film right now. I need to do something a bit different.

I've been wanting to make a movie about the war in Sierra Leone, specifically, for more than 15 years.

A period romance film with elements of horror. That was successful, because I feel like Coppola's DRACULA was one or the other. You know? It was never scary it was never a film he got invested in the romance of the characters. He understood it, but he never got invested. So it as a challenge for me to see if I could do that, I still don't know how audiences will sort of react to that.

Getting back in the directors chair - there's a sense of like doing something every year. It's not like riding a bike, you're always learning new things, you're gonna face new challenges and when you face new challenges you'll have an answer for them.

Collaboration sometimes causes conflict, and sometimes it's easy, but the bringing together of great minds only adds.

If you really want to tell someone you love them, you don't just go and blurt it out. There's a dance. And your movie does that.

I do want to direct a movie from horseback one day.

It's nice to represent to other people in the world that Americans actually do know what's happening in the world, can speak other languages and are conscientious. The perception quite often is that we don't know what's beyond our county line.

I'm terrible at making titles. I never like the titles of my films.

If you think of most murders as being between people who know each other, it's very easy to figure out who the killer is. But when you have a murder that appears random, where the person is not someone that's within the known radius of the victim, then it's much, much more difficult to solve.

It takes the wool from your eyes about how the world works, to show you that nothing's necessarily fair, and that you might have a hard life.

I want to be happy while I make movies and not just do things just to work. I want to do things I spend years on.

I just have a hard time displaying things.

I don't think I'd ever write anything that I don't also direct just because it's so hard and painful to write as it is.

One of the great things about working with Focus is that you're never forced, especially with a film with low budget. The pressure is sort of off. It's like it's so under the radar in a sense that you can cast whoever you want.

I think that one of the most exciting things about making films is the sort of reaching out to the world. It's as an ambassador. You realize the more you travel that you are a cultural ambassador for your own country. You never become more patriotic than you do living abroad.

Everyone wants to be liked, so of course you want critical acclaim. After that, box office acclaim isn't bad. More than anything I think you have to try and make something you're proud of.

They're always surprised with what I want to do and don't want to do. I think they're surprised I don't want to do robo-tech. I don't know, it's like they want me to have a long career. And be prolific and make big movies.

The only pressure is the pressure I put on myself, that's up to be I guess to mitigate that. I think there's always pressure that you make the right choice for the next film. You don't know what the outcome is gonna be, there's always potential to find length to your career as well. Now I'm so far from any other job skills that if I don't make movies.

Every single substitute teacher growing up could not pronounce my name, so whenever someone pauses, I'm like, "Oh, that's me."

All I kept thinking about was, "Man, he's so relaxed onstage! I'm never going to be that relaxed! I'm clearly not meant to be in front of the camera. I'm really not meant for anything but behind the camera."

I think auditions are set up for failure because they're not really the set experience. There's no time to develop the character. You're just looking at someone... if someone's really good in an audition, sometimes they're not good in the film. It's something you learn when you're doing short films. It's the same way that some people do well at taking tests and some people don't. But when you're on a long-term filmmaking process it's a completely different feeling.

The authenticity aspect is pretty important to me. When we have to compromise and do something that's not authentic, it really rubs me, every time I have to see it in the edit, which is millions of times.

It's just nice to be able to communicate and be able to identify with a lot of different cultures. I have no idea what it would be like to be just one thing and speak one language. I feel enormously privileged to travel and be able to mingle and speak to people that, had I only known English, I wouldn't have been able to meet.

There are a lot of movies I would want to be a fly on the wall for. I would have loved to see the making of Jaws [1975], with all the fears and anxieties it was going to be a complete failure, and then to have it turn into the first blockbuster.

Your movie should lull people into a place of openness and vulnerability. If it is just a diatribe, it's never going to work.

In snowboarding, you're constantly aware that people are so technically brilliant at what they do, and you feel like, "Ugh, I'll never be able to do that."

I started writing stories when I was 9 or 10. I wrote my first screenplay-type document when I was 14.

When people start talking, things happen.

In a city like New York, especially for young professionals who aren't in a family situation, most people don't cook for themselves. This is the only city I've ever lived in where I eat out every night.

I don't really see a huge divide between filmmaking and television. In the end, a lot of people are going to be watching this stuff on their laptops and their iPhones anyway. So, it doesn't really matter where it comes from, as long as the stories get told.

Film still looks way better than digital.

The theoretical casting part of movies is the funnest part. You really can imagine so many different versions of a story, based on who's embodying it.

I have tremendous faith that there will be greater films to come.

I definitely pay attention to details. I think one of the hardest things about making a movie is that it can be scrutinized over and over again. If anything just isn't right, it's going to take you out of the film.

As a director, your job is to make sure no one for any reason is taken out of the film. Sometimes it's impossible and sometimes things don't come out the way you want them to, but I think you have to work really hard at making the world engrossing and details are a major part of that.

I have aspirations of making a big, historical epic. I don't know if I'll ever get the money to do it.

It's pretty awesome to see people dressed up in period clothing and running around on horses and in carriages and all that kind of thing. Part of the fun of making a period film is just that playfulness. It's just like make believe when you're a child except you get to do it for a real job.

Living in New York, I get excited by the idea of working in a different medium. And it's pretty frightening because whatever skills it takes to make a good piece of theater seem mysterious to me right now.

I don't know what I am on set. I can be many different things on set depending on how stressful a situation is. But at the end of the day we're making movies, we're not saving the world... we're not an army, no one's lives are at risk and we're just trying to make art, so I think as long as you keep reminding yourself that's what it's about you can have fun.

Sometimes the best set experiences make for the worst films. So, you don't want it to be too good an experience! But the bulk of your life is working with people and collaborating so you don't want anyone to be miserable on your film either. You want it to be something that people walk away from saying that it was a good experience for them and hopefully a good film. As a director, you are sort of leader of that troupe for that period of time, so you're aware of morale and your effect - how you are as a person and how that sort of trickles down to everyone else.

When you think about being a director, you think about writing stories, putting the camera in interesting places and directing the actors to get your vision, but it's hard to imagine even this process... sitting here nine months later talking about the film and talking about it 20 times in one day. You don't even think about the part where you come to the set every morning and everyone's looking at you to see your mood in order to see what the day is going to be like, and the influence that you wield.

I've never watched my films with an everyday audience so it was really crazy to watch people clap at the end of my film - with no one there, no actors, no people from the film. It was just a spontaneous reaction, so I thought that was probably the best compliment you could get from an audience.

I try not to read too much because what ends up happening is that you ignore the nice reviews and you just focus on the bad reviews. A negative lesson is learned seven times deeper than a positive reinforcement.

You only have so much time in life so everything you do needs to mean something to you.