Alexander Payne

“When I'm shooting, I don't care who the star is. I have an actor playing a part, and I'm serving the script, not serving anyone's career.”

“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.”

“'Independent' means one thing to me: It means that regardless of the source of financing, the director's voice is extremely present. It's such a pretentious term, but it's auteurist cinema. Director-driven, personal, auteurist... Whatever word you want.”

“I don't feel despair because I am able to make the films I want to make, and that gives me hope.”

“What is filmmaking but groping in the dark?”

“I want all of my films to belong to me.”

“I think that Peter Jennings is the only decent one of the big three.”

“In the moment of making films, I want to share my observations of life, not of other films.”

“My flag is always flying. My shingle is always out. I'm always looking for movie ideas.”

“The kindest thing a director can do is look with open eyes at everything.”

“If you're trying to recreate life, the life that you best know is the one you grew up with.”

“I definitely in filmmaking more and more find writing and directing a means to harvest material for editing. It's all about editing.”

“I like to think of film-making not just as an act of personal self-aggrandisement but rather as an act of public service.”

“I think a badly crafted, great idea for a new film with a ton of spelling mistakes is just 100 times better than a well-crafted stale script.”

“When you watch a movie, you don't want to feel like a machine made it. You want to feel a soul.”

“Omaha, like Rome, is built on seven hills.”

“You look at how many years you have left, and you start to think: 'How many more films do I have in me?'”

“Life mixes tones all the time.”

“It seems that our politicians see the world in black and white, so why not our artists? Did Woody Allen's 'Manhattan' have to be in black and white? No. But is it fantastic that it was? To see New York like that? Yes!”

“I never wanted money worries to slow me down or make me take a job I didn't want.”