Gus Van Sant Quotes

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Gus Van Sant

Profession : Director

Birth : July 24, 1952

When I was 14, I felt very rundown; I had a home to go to, but I felt like I was 60 or something, older than I feel now. And I don't know if it's something that happens at 14, or whether it was adolescence or whether I was gay, or closeted gay, or whatever it was, I felt that.

Gus Van Sant

In high school, I read 'Silas Marner' and I was very attracted to this character - he was very rundown and he'd just stop, and things would happen around him.

Gus Van Sant

I think over the course of 14 films, I'm returning to a place that I know to tell a story... the same way Spielberg returned to fantasy, Lucas returned to the 'Star Wars' saga, or John Ford returned to the western.

Gus Van Sant

I don't usually direct actors in the classic sense of that word. Instead, I try to remind the characters before the shoot what's going on in a very simple way. I then watch them, their inventions as actors, approving or not approving what they're doing.

Gus Van Sant

You're following your track, the story, your only plan, your map for the audience, and all the other stuff is, like, the fun stuff: the costumes, the locations, the set-dressing and the actors. They can all be variable as you like if you stick - however roughly - to the path.

Gus Van Sant

The artist himself is actually the subject in everything after, say, 1900. Eventually, art becomes so removed from the community that you have to know about the artist before you can even look at the painting, because there is a conceptual idea going on.

Gus Van Sant

I think that what I'm attracted to is people who are wild. But the self-destructive side comes out of the wild side. The wildness is very different from me. That's why I think I like it.

Gus Van Sant

Modern-day cinema takes the form of a sermon. You don't get to think, you only get to receive information.

Gus Van Sant

My department is to get actors to do stuff.

Gus Van Sant

If a movie isn't released, it's one thing, but if you know it will be, it's nice to have closure and see it come out.

Gus Van Sant

Even when you're making a movie about life, death is a presence, and I guess it's part of my dramatic viewpoint. I'm not sure why exactly.

Gus Van Sant

If I'm diagnosed with cancer I might become despondent, but someone young might not, and they might need connections with somebody outside their circle of family because their family is so despondent.

Gus Van Sant

There's always a risk if you don't do things the way you've done things before.

Gus Van Sant

I'm usually trying to react to what the actors are coming up with. And then the environment, and then the story.

Gus Van Sant

I hadn't made a big-budget film, and in Hollywood there's a sort of man and boys situation. You're a man, you make $80 million movies! As if it's harder to make an $80 million movie. Well, I guess businesswise it is because you have more executives to argue with.

Gus Van Sant

The media has gone through lots of things that make it a less foreign thing to have your lead character be gay.

Gus Van Sant

Usually people just hire me.

Gus Van Sant

I mean, I think I'm pretty sentimental.

Gus Van Sant

I think that in some cases, I've made films that have a sentimental quality, at least as part of the film.

Gus Van Sant

When you get to be 23, 24 or 25, you start to freeze up and become an adult.

Gus Van Sant