On the difference between a good director and a great director: "The other day I was watching [John Ford’s] The Searchers, and there is that bit where John Wayne has this thing with his brother’s wife — within this [male-oriented] story of his adventure to get his niece back. To have that worldview but at the same time have the glimpses of intimacy? That’s just a great director. ’Cause he’s not afraid of his feminine side as much as his masculine side."
Daniels on what makes a great director: "Being unafraid. Being unafraid of what people will say or how they will judge. Going with your gut. And being unafraid to share your vision with the world."
"The early, early experiences in movie theaters when you’re a kid are very, very important," says Greengrass. "I can absolutely, vividly remember being taken by my dad to see Dr. Zhivago, one of my most vivid childhood memories. Making films is an attempt to replicate those intense experiences you had as a kid."
"You do your first films with a lot of enthusiasm," says Cuaron. "I was lucky that my second film [1995’s A Little Princess] was a blissful experience. And then I got a bit engaged in the machinery. I forgot that I used to do my own stuff, and I became this reader of screenplays that they were sending to me. And I started forgetting that I had a voice. It started to become more about the industry. And then I did a film that was a horrible experience, Great Expectations (1998). That is a film that I should have not done. I passed many times, and then I ended up saying yes for the wrong reasons."
"I've had this parallel career as an actor, and I've always personally felt more like a director. That's what I've enjoyed the most and what I've always wanted to do since I was a kid," Stiller says. "Over the years, I felt I started to make a certain kind of movie — comedies — which I love, but I've always loved drama, I've always loved all different genres. When Mitty came along, it sort of opened up for me the filmmaking experience: 'This is what I should be doing now.' "
"There is no note that I won’t take," Russell says of getting feedback from the studio. "So I’ll try any note, and then I’ll tell you why I think it’s better one way or another. But I do feel the studio is my collaborator. I’m always interested to hear what they think. And I try it. I try it a few different ways, just like with actors. I’ll say, 'Let’s try it a couple of different ways,' and then it reveals itself to you. It’s very surprising sometimes."
Cuaron on 2001's Y Tu Mama Tambien: "That was with Chivo [director of photography Emmanuel Lubezki, who also worked on Gravity], actually. What we talked about was, 'Let’s do the film we would have done before we even went to film school. Let’s start from scratch.' ”
"There’s nothing worse than wanting to tell a story or sing a song and not knowing how to do it," Russell says of a novice director's struggle. "And when I was younger, that was true. It’s very frustrating to want to do something and not know how to do it. And then when you find it, it’s liberating."
McQueen on working in different art forms: "I don’t really see them as different. I just do stuff — meaning, I see film as a novel, and I see art as poetry. It’s doing the same thing. One is linear, the other one is [nonlinear, almost like] Franklin’s Fractions of a paragraph."
Stiller on being a young director: "When you’re young, you have this naivete or ignorance or whatever that you think you know how to do it, and then that gives you the courage to go and just do your thing. [I recently saw some behind-the-scenes footage from] the first movie I directed, Reality Bites. And I just said: 'God, what a dick. I’m just being a total asshole.' I really hope I’m not like that anymore. But maybe when you start out, you have to have this blind sort of faith."
On a director's lifestyle: "I do think it is an all-consuming thing, like major-league sports, and it’s not for everybody. And your family has to be down for that."
McQueen on conflict on the set: "It’s a director’s job to hopefully extinguish conflict. I mean, that’s what you’re there for. Otherwise it’s not productive, obviously. And you’re there to make a film, and you have to extinguish it and to make sense of whatever that problem is. You’re the guy that everyone’s looking at.
From left: 12 Years a Slave’s Steve McQueen, Captain Phillips’ Paul Greengrass, American Hustle's David O. Russell, The Secret Life of Walter Mitty's Ben Stiller, Gravity’s Alfonso Cuaron and The Butler’s Lee Daniels.