Scorsese Quotes

The idea of working with David Fincher or Paul Thomas Anderson or Wes Anderson or Scorsese or Spielberg or any of the guys I really idolize is a dream for me.

Snoop Scorsese, that's my director name.

Tarantino and Jackson is like Scorsese and DeNiro, and their silent communication.

I can't help but have my sights set on Scorsese, Cohen Brothers and Spike Jones.

Whatever, man. Scorsese thinks I’m awesome

It's tough to get any film made, even if you're Martin Scorsese. It's just hard to get films made.

Any time someone says you have an opportunity to work with Martin Scorsese you jump at the chance.

[Martin Scorsese ] basically works just like any other director. You work the scene, you try to find what's best in it and make it work. That's what it was like.

I'm, like, y'know, I didn't have a problem doing one scene in Dude, Where's My Car? I'm certainly not going to have a problem doing one scene in a [Martin] Scorsese movie!

I love 'Goodfellas' because it's a great movie - it's funny and there is action at perfect points. I just think Martin Scorsese makes everyone look really cool.

When Scorsese shoots a violent scene, it's very uncomfortable - it's not like watching 'Rambo.'

When you start a new project and they say, "Your director is going to be Joe Blo," you're hoping that Joe Blo will be the next Martin Scorsese, but it doesn't always work out that way.

I think the obvious answer is I was raised in New York City, so growing up, not only myself but my family, like my father, we would watch a lot of Scorsese films.

Marty [Scorsese] knows that when an improvised moment comes out of a real situation, it's gonna have more life and more going on than anything you can imagine and that's how the character can become the story

If Martin Scorsese calls, I am available. And then there the ones, well, you can just run down the list - any of those Oscar-nominated films, they have amazing directors across the board.

[Martin] Scorsese probably could have directed Schindler's List and [Steven] Spielberg probably could have directed Goodfellas. But it's as much to do with the difference in culture as it is with race.

In Goodfellas they have this one scene where the camera goes down some steps and walks through a kitchen into a restaurant and the critics were all over this as evidence of the genius of Scorsese and Scorsese is a genius.

My experience in work, even going to work with Scorsese, is that people always think there's some magic trick. There's no magic trick. The people who are really good at what they do do simple things really, really well.

I mean, Scorsese's a genius, and that's one way of shooting.

In terms of directors, great actors make directors - Gary Oldman was great to work with, for me; Tim Roth, too. You work with Scorsese and Spielberg and they were wonderful directors, but for me, working with actor/directors is special.

Scorsese, Spielberg, Tarantino, Peter Jackson - all of you: I'm here, I'm ready. I can do funny faces, I can sing, I can dance. Hire me!

I think they [Martin Scorsese, Johnny Carson, Frank Sinatra] liked my honesty. My personality. For that, they always treated me great. I, in turn, treated them great. No secret about it. My being who I am - that is that.

I am a filmmaker. That is all I've ever been. You know, Martin Scorsese makes films about the mob. And I make movies about food.

I think it's cool when Scorsese will pop up in a movie or something like that. I never want to make a career out of that or anything. I like directing. That's my favorite thing.

One of the things I've discovered at my age is I must have enchantment. And that was not clear to me in my earlier years. When I look at my favorite films, the Frank Capra - even Scorsese, even 'Goodfellas,' what makes that movie so remarkable is there's enchantment in their world.

In the the late seventies and early eighties, I played background roles in thirty movies... Woody Allen movies, Scorsese films, you name it. Whatever was being shot in New York, I was doing stand-in and background work because I wanted to be close to the camera; I wanted to see what was going on.

I was kind of a little disappointed when they started building a competition between Marty (Martin Scorsese) and me. I have the greatest respect for him and all the films he's done over the years.

Ooh, I'd love to be in a movie with Meryl Streep or Martin Scorsese. There are so many different things I want to do, maybe like a possessed child or an evil something... I don't know!

I am defined also by Woody Allen’s films and Martin Scorsese and Jim Jarmusch and Julian Schnabel or Almodóvar, or by Guillermo del Toro, Iñárritu, Cuarón. Even if we haven’t worked with them, we are all defined by their filmography.

You know, you have Scorsese who worked with De Niro and - or DiCaprio. You have William Wyler who worked with Bette Davis. You have George Cukor who worked with Katharine Hepburn. I just - people get to be friends and then there's a - that's a - you can take risks together and each time out you take a different risk.

It's interesting to help someone find their vocabulary. There would not have been a De Niro without a Scorsese.

I'd rather go for Scorsese and De Niro. I just think he was so much better.

Producing, for me anyway, it's coming up with material. It's sitting down with you know the likes of Martin Scorsese, Johnny Depp, Michael Mann and talking about a movie and really creating something from nothing.

I introduced myself to Scorsese and I said, "If you need someone to do craft services, I'm there."

I put myself on tape and the cool thing was that Martin Scorsese had never heard of me. He had never seen [Everybody Loves Raymond]. I was just an unknown actor to him. I don't want to sound conceited, like he has to know who I am, but that seemed a little odd. He's a film genius. He doesn't watch sitcoms.

You're only as good as your body of work, and everybody has issues, whether it's Steven Spielberg or Martin Scorsese. I'm not comparing myself to those guys, but you learn more from the misses than the hits.

I would wish for any one of my colleagues to have the experience of working with Martin Scorsese once in their lifetime.

I don't really watch too many remakes. I saw Scorsese's version of Cape Fear, which was good. That was a good remake.

Martin Scorsese is doing a 3D movie (Hugo Cabret). A lot of amazing filmmakers are. Not just the obvious of Jim Cameron, but Spielberg is doing it and Peter Jackson has worked in it. In the hands of those types of people, it will just keep getting better and better.

I had this whole issue of doing a crime film in the 2010s. The genre's been mined very, very heavily. Post-Scorsese, post-Tarantino, post-Guy Ritchie, what do you do? I wasn't attracted to pulp so much as all of a sudden I had a pulp problem. I had to find a way to make this interesting, because there's a lot of crime films that come out on VOD every week, and a number of these star Nicolas Cage.

Personally, I'd like as many children as I can pop out, I reckon. You come from a happy family; you want to create a happy family. And in the same breath, I'd like to be on stage at England's National Theatre, doing Miller and Chekhov. Give me a Sam Mendes/Tennessee Williams combination-that would be glorious. And to be making some Oscar-worthy movies with Scorsese. I'm always looking for the hard road. That way, you remain interested and interesting. Hopefully.

I always remember what Bob Dylan said in that [Martin] Scorsese documentary on him. When he was asked about Joan Baez's complaints about the way he treated her when they were together, Dylan laughed and said, "It's impossible to be in love and wise at the same time."

I actually love Scorsese comedies. He's an underrated comedy director. I think his comedies are some of the best comedies ever made.

I'm a product of older filmmakers I guess, the past where you get to make movies and scenes are what they are. You know if you think about Scorsese back in the day when he was making Taxi Driver, or Coppola or Frankenheimer, Sidney Lumet, they're making films where you witness violence in a real way.

I had never done anything with blue screen before, or prosthetics, or anything like that. Lord of the Rings was like stepping into a videogame for me. It was another world completely. But, to be honest, I basically did it so that I could have the ears. I thought they would really work with my bare head.Working with Martin Scorsese was an absolute minute-by-minute education without him ever being grandiose about it.

I've always been drawn to a certain kind of dark aesthetic in cinema and in film, to what's abjected or considered abject. I've been tremendously influenced by noirish cinema whether that's Von Sternberg or Scorsese in the 70s or Lynch, etc.

I'm trying to steal from everybody. So yeah, there's cats that I'm personally affiliated with - Carl Franklin, Paul Thomas Anderson - and others that I don't know personally but their work I'm a big admirer of, like Martin Scorsese. But I'm hoping to come up with a language that is mine, that's specific to my take on this material.

Actually, I can't stand watching violent scenes in films; I avoid watching horror films. I don't tend to watch action films mainly because I find them boring, but I watch the films of David Cronenberg and Martin Scorsese, usually in a state close to having a heart attack. I'm a complete coward. I make violent films as a result of my sensitivity to violence - in other words, my fear of violence.

Directors like Satyajit Ray, Rossellini, Bresson, Buñuel, Forman, Scorsese, and Spike Lee have used non-professional actors precisely in order that the people we see on the screen may be scarcely more explained than reality itself. Professionals, except fo the greatest, usually play not just the necessary role, but an explanation of the role.

Working with Martin Scorsese was an absolute minute-by-minute education without him ever being grandiose about it.