Jeff Nichols Quotes

Jeff Nichols

Profession : Director

Birth : December 7, 1978

The films that have influenced me most are: 'The Hustler', 'Badlands', 'Hud', 'Tender Mercies', 'Cool Hand Luke', 'A Perfect World', and 'Laurence of Arabia'. I also really like 'Fletch'. I feel like all of these films reached an honest place in regard to the human condition while also stringing together really entertaining stories.

Jeff Nichols

I never wanted to make movies just for me. I want to make movies that people watch.

Jeff Nichols

The more we try to control our kids and create who they are and where they're going, the more that will fall apart. That's a dangerous thing. So you need to actually manage the fear and figure out who your kids are. Who do they want to be and how can you help shape that, but not control it.

Jeff Nichols

I think I could probably make $5 to $10m movies for a very long time and live a perfectly good life doing it. I'd probably get paid as well as a surgeon, which is pretty damn remarkable for a guy who went to film school.

Jeff Nichols

My characters are not thinking about the act breaks. They're thinking about what they need to do to move forward. As long as I focus on that, the story starts to progress. As soon as I think, 'We're 20 pages in, something better blow up,' we're in trouble.

Jeff Nichols

In terms of my personal spirituality and everything else, it's ever-evolving. I have a desire to want more out of the universe. But the older I get, the further I get from any specifics about that.

Jeff Nichols

Nature is the purest thing we can touch and observe. It can be the most beautiful and also the most devastating.

Jeff Nichols

I think only the movies you do remember are the films you had an emotional connection to.

Jeff Nichols

Write dialogue that supports the situation and the characters, as you find them.

Jeff Nichols

Sometimes you'll write while listening to a piece of music and think it's great, but then you'll go back and read it without the music and go, 'This sucks.'

Jeff Nichols

I was always interested in creative writing growing up. From junior high on, I was writing short stories. I also grew up watching movies. My father would take me to everything. Most weeks, I could open the paper having seen every movie listed.

Jeff Nichols

Making movies is really hard. It's a very complex process, with many, many variables.

Jeff Nichols

I found filmmaking to be a very practical art form. It's about figuring out how to create within the very practical limitations/constraints of time, money, and large groups of collaborators.

Jeff Nichols

I loved, in 'Starman', the use of anamorphic lenses, the creation of blue light, and Carpenter's use of the widescreen format.

Jeff Nichols

I can talk to execs very clearly, very plainly. I don't get nervous in front of them anymore.

Jeff Nichols

There's one right place to put the camera. I'm a big believer in that. You'd think you could put it anywhere. Nope.

Jeff Nichols

I grew up in Arkansas, and I went to Little Rock Central High, which was the site of a desegregation crisis in '57. I graduated in '97.

Jeff Nichols

I'll say this: I think from a directing standpoint, 'Loving' is my most accomplished film. Strictly from a technical, directing point of view.

Jeff Nichols

I think when you're talking about marriage equality and race, people very quickly start to get into their political corners: their ideology comes to the forefront, and they get into this platform argument that they're used to making, which really doesn't have anything to do with the day-to-day basics of what is being talked about.

Jeff Nichols

I thought 'Mud' would be such an easy film for people to understand.

Jeff Nichols