Edward Zwick

“People who have any kind of illness use humor as a type of coping.”

“I've always believed that the stories and the performances are more important than I am. I think that the more invisible that my hand is, the more attention people can pay to the story and to those performances.”

“I really look forward to that opportunity to be a student and discover things. That keeps it interesting for me. And I sometimes get easily bored, and there are still some things I wanna talk about instead of repeating something.”

“Ironically, it's easier to raise the money to make the film than it is to have the film find wide distribution.”

“Every day and every scene, it's never the scene that you expect.”

“I think most Americans probably believe that our relationship with Japan began in 1941. In fact, obviously, it began in 1854 when Commodore Perry sailed into Yokohama harbor and threatened to burn it down unless they would open up to trade with us. The imperial impulse was first ours historically.”

“There is something universal in the theme of a man trying to save his family in the midst of the most terrible circumstances. It is not limited to Sierra Leone. This story could apply to any number of places where ordinary people have been caught up in political events beyond their control.”

“I tend not to go look at movies before I make a movie. I'd rather not be specifically influenced.”

“I've always been drawn to all sorts of genres and all sorts of voices.”

“I've never been one of those guys who storyboards every frame, because that would take away some of the mystery and some of the fun.”

“It's one thing to plan and imagine what you want on a film, but when you actually arrive and survey the scene, there's a moment of, 'Oh my God, what was I thinking?'”

“The promise of an action movie to a certain audience is not a bad thing.”

“People make the assumption that you're only interested in one thing based on the most recent thing you've done. But some directors can be pretty promiscuous about their tastes, and that's how I want to challenge myself.”

“I'm very promiscuous in my tastes.”

“In my office, we were talking about the fact that they'd announced a remake of 'A Star is Born,' and I was bemoaning the idea of a fourth remake. And the young guys who work in my office were giving me blank looks, like, 'What's 'A Star is Born?'”

“Growing up, movies were something my family and, later, my friends and I would stay up all night talking about. The movies I remember moved me and forced you to think about things that made you know yourself better.”

“I think to see American troops in an American city is, you know, the sum of all of our fears.”

“The issue of diamonds in Africa is inseparable from the issue of child soldiers.”

“You can spend an extraordinary amount of time raising independent money to do a movie for very little means. I've done it with 'Pawn Sacrifice.'”

“There's a rising tide of concern among activists, economists, and artists about Africa. Theres a temptation to think of it as a monolith as opposed to all these different countries with different problems.”