Unlike the twisters he famously chased in the movies, Bill Paxton was the kind of force of nature you ran toward and never away from.
— Ron Howard
It's hard to define change in oneself unless something really dramatic happens, like you give up some vice, fall in love, or something like that.
What I love about DVD is that the quality is good.
I don't want to only make the movies that studios will greenlight.
Imagine if the people who have lived and learned still had the vitality to act upon the hard learned lessons - and not just share in a conversation, but lead.
When people asked me back then what I wanted to be when I grew up, I said a basketball player, and I meant it. But I loved going to the movies.
A scene, a day of shooting, can often make you feel kind of stupid and inept because your one job is to anticipate and react and know what to go for.
When you're young and you're striving, it's all uphill, and it's easier to climb. Then, when you get and look around, you sort of say, 'Wow, the altitude's kinda thin up here!'
I would do a documentary about Jay-Z. Yes, I would.
I have a grandson who's both really interested in art and all things mechanical, so I think he'll get a huge kick out of 'Apollo 13' someday. And I think my granddaughters will enjoy 'Splash.'
Don't make election popularity largely a matter of which candidate hires the most creative and effective propagandists. Insist that it be, instead, a running conversation with the public.
I'm excited about what technology is offering storytellers and movie- and TV-makers.
From when I was a young boy, I wanted to be the first person to direct a movie at 100.
3-D is a truly exciting possibility. Whether that's going to be something that sustains our interest, I'm not certain, but I think it will.
The hardest thing which I've experienced is calling up my father, Rance Howard, who's a wonderful actor, and telling him I've had to cut him out of the movie, which I've had to do twice. That's a lump-in-the-throat phone call.
I've been around the 'Star Wars' universe from the beginning.
We're all constantly keeping score. You can't help it. But trying to pit ourselves against other people in some measurable way is largely a waste of time.
When you read about it, you realize that mental illness is so prevalent. People didn't always have the right terms for it, but most families have had a brush with it.
I can't say that I am a DVD junkie. I see most films that I want to see in the theater, and so most of my DVD-watching is catching up with the occasional movies that I missed or revisiting a film that I really care about, in which case I really want the extra channels, because it's a movie that I already love, and I want to know more about it.
I think there's a tendency with actor/directors to imagine themselves playing every part and trying to get people to follow their rhythm, their tempo, their pace. I've learned now to just love being at the center of this creative swirl.
I always think of the good comebacks on the car ride home.
I don't look ahead to the future as a vast, endless one. I've begun to feel the calendar pages turning.
I want to work. I'd be unsatisfied if I couldn't be pursuing this. But I love my family more. This is really life.
Sometimes there's something very comforting about a film unfolding more or less as you expect it to.
When I realized that my big dream was going to come true - 'Night Shift' was a success, 'Splash' was a success, I got the job to do 'Cocoon' - suddenly, I was underway. And I knew my name was rising up the lists. I was going to have a career. I was going to be able to direct movies until I screwed it up.
I didn't really listen to music when I was doing homework or when I - when I work on a script. I tend to drift to NPR and news.
Let me be clear: neither I nor 'Angels & Demons' are anti-Catholic.
One of the big surprises for me about Einstein was... that he wasn't this big introvert; he was more like a novelist or a painter. It's amazing how close society came to not benefiting from Albert Einstein's genius.
My obligation is to the movie audiences.
Even when you're 22 and you feel immortal, you know in your heart you're not.
A long time ago, I stopped trying to look at projects as genre exercises.
I have the career that I want.
There was a combination of shyness and just fear of looking stupid that kept me out of a lot of interesting creative conversations that I could have had at an early age.
Nobody can compare themselves to what The Beatles went through. It was wild.
The story of John Nash is an amazing, powerful journey. But as unique as this man is, his story is also very accessible because it is so heartbreakingly human.
I really liked the 'Pitch Black' DVD, and I liked the commentary.
I'd say that 'In the Heart of the Sea' is the most challenging movie I've made. It was tough to figure out how to lead this large cast into some very sensitive, intense, emotional scenes.
I don't believe in perfection, but those acrimony-free gaps during our family holidays can be downright blissful.
I don't think there is a single character in 'The Graduate' that is not a phony, to one degree or another, except Benjamin and Elaine, and only in the scenes when they are alone together.
When I occasionally indulge in sort of a 'look back' at highlights, it's so interesting - it almost never comes from an image on a set or even the Academy Awards. It's almost always a family trip or meeting and falling in love with Cheryl.
I'm lucky in a lot of ways. And in my family life, my home life, is where I count myself the luckiest.
As a documentarian, you think, 'Follow your curiosity.'
I've been around a lot of artists who are also good at business, and... one minute they'll sound like an artist, and the next minute, they'll sound like the characters in 'Mad Men.' Jay-Z's a very good businessman, and he talks about it and enjoys it, but he doesn't shift.
Instead of candidates hiring people, like yours truly, to create campaign media that works on both conscious and subconscious levels to sway the voting public, what if all TV ads were, by law, only allowed to feature the candidate, with, say, the American flag as the backdrop, alone, speaking directly to the camera?
Whatever your political leaning, vote. This participation is vital. I feel the same way about issues like the space program, education, the military. The more the public focuses on these things, thinks and forms opinions, I think the better we are as a democracy.
There are creative benefits to getting older.
I believe in the imperative to explore, so any project that I can be involved with that celebrates that, and expands people's imagination around that idea of pushing out, is one of the most positive things that I think I could be involved with.
My brother's a blast to direct; he's one of those great characters who brings so much to every scene he's in, and we're pals.
Being a president is an impossible job - it's naive to think someone can do the job and not bend the law here and there.
In the research I did for 'Apollo,' there was never a moment's hesitation by anyone that we would do anything other than save these guys, until every resource, every ounce of energy was spent. And I'm very proud of that aspect of our culture.
