Taylor Hackford Quotes

Well I don't think I've scored my life exclusively to Ray Charles.

The director's job should give you a sense of music without drawing attention to itself.

Music has always been an important thing to me in my life and understand I've worked in the music business.

But a writer's contribution is literary and a film is not literary. When you take that stuff off the page, and cast the people who are going to fit into those roles, that's what being a director is.

We all get paid very, very well, and we have responsibilities.

When I finish a film, I put it away and I never look at it again.

The SAS is the most elite of the special forces in the world. They are not people who go out and advertise; they keep it inside. They don't want anybody to know about them.

But the process of making a film is not glamorous. Certainly not my films.

Ray Charles, in his own way, it's like at the beginning, Ray Charles changed American music, not once but twice.

I'm not in front of the camera, they are. I encourage them; I build up as much of their confidence and ego as possible. They've got to take control; I can't act it out.

I really believe you can predict when someone has a great attitude, a real well of talent.

Look at Walter Huston in The Devil and Daniel Webster: It's an incredible performance.

It's much easier to work with an unknown.

An actor has to embody a role.

And it's a question of how far we're willing to go in order to let the ego shine, in order to let that beacon penetrate not only the local scene but the world.

I feel very comfortable shooting music, and I think you can see that.

But, unfortunately, sometimes that affirmation creates a sense that you deserve special treatment and recognition in areas where you're not so talented.

My creative partner is a writer, and he's got an executive producing credit on this film. We've made three films together and I would never underestimate the impact of a writer.

The whole concept of the devil is a metaphor on one level.

When Ray Charles is concentrating he's like a piece of granite, nothing twitches, nothing, ... He sat for 25 minutes solid like that, like a stone, and I thought, 'Oh my God, if he doesn't like it I'm dead.' ... And then finally, after 25 minutes he started to talk back to the screen. I heard him say 'That's right. That's the truth.' .

I love actors and I understand what has to happen within a scene. Any scene is an acting scene and actors never act alone, so there has to be an interchange. If it's a dialog scene, if it's a love scene, it doesn't matter because you need to establish a situation.

I make films about working class people.

It's very clearly stated in the film: You make your own choices, and what you're always fighting is ego.

Show business is one of those things that people can use to get themselves out of the lower rung of society.

This devil loves mankind because men are going to always make the choice that will send him into ascendancy. He's been winning the game for a long time.