Quotes

I'm not in pictures to promote my private personality. I'm in it for the joy of it.

[on directing Ethel Waters in The Member of the Wedding (1952)] Every time I'd try to help her, she'd roll her eyes to the heavens and say, "God is my director!" How can you argue with that?

I will always think of myself as a Hollywood director, not only because I grew up in the American film industry, but also because I believe in making films that will please a mass audience, and not just in making films that express my own personality or ideas. I have always tried to offer an audience something positive in a film and to entertain them as well.

The three most important things about a film are the script, the script, the script.

I was born and raised in Austria. When I was growing up, I wanted to be a musician, but fortunately I discovered in time that I had no musical talent. Then I tried law, and I am not sorry I did because it taught me a method of thinking. Also, since in Austria in those days canon law was required for law students, I later found that very helpful in making films like The Nun's Story (1959) and A Man for All Seasons (1966).

I just like to do films that are positive in the sense that they deal with the dignity of human beings and have something to say about oppression, not necessarily in a political way but in a human way. I have to feel that what I'm trying to do is worthwhile.

I only learned about acting from actors.

(On Grace Kelly)(Kelly) at the time wasn't equipped to do very much...She was very wooden...which fitted perfectly, and her lack of experience and sort of gauche behaviour was to me very touching - to see this prim Easterner in the wilds of the Burbank Columbia backlot - it worked very well."

I think I'd be very wary about doing another musical. But I'd love to do another western if I found a good story and if I could find good actors - they are getting very rare because it's becoming a sort of second-hand thing now with young actors, where the older ones, people like Gary Cooper, knew about the old west more from personal experience.

Montgomery Clift forced the other actors to be much better than they really were. That's the only way I can put it. He got performances from the other actors, he got reactions from the other actors that were totally genuine.