Derek Cianfrance

There's something so great when you're watching a movie when you slowly get to know somebody more, because it's like a real relationship.

When I grew up, a director was Cecil B DeMille, a guy sitting down with a megaphone speaking. He was the voice of God, the image of God. When I went to start making docs, I quickly turned the megaphone to my ear not to my mouth. It's more about funneling in the words and listening as doc filmmaker.

I shot 'Blue Valentine' on 16mm for the past, and for the present on the Red Camera. I feel that both formats are valid. The stories should dictate the format we shoot on. Filmmakers should have a choice.

As a writer, I always peel back the layers, go to the most sensitive places uncomfortably close to the heart.

I was an audience member before I'm a filmmaker. All I've tried to do as a filmmaker was to make movies I want to see.

I'm not the greatest reader. I feel like I have a bit of dyslexia or something, and that's probably why I became a filmmaker. I have the need to communicate, the need to tell stories; and the need to understand stories led me to movies.

I feel like the job of an artist is to confront their own darkness and their own demons and fears. And I want to make movies that feel human up on the screen. I don't really relate to dudes wearing spandex and capes.

I grew up Catholic, so I feel guilty about everything.

The only time I judge an actor on set is if they're not failing; if they get it right all the time, I start to question it. I feel like it's too easy.

With each character in a movie, I'm looking for a human being. I'm looking for a person. And to me, I'm looking for a person that's full of strengths and weaknesses, a person that's full of successes and failures, a person that's full of joy and sorrow. I'm interested in people that are human beings that are alive.

When we make these movies, you sign up for an experience. It's not just, 'Action! Cut!' There's not that safety in it. It's kind of a dangerous place to be. I mean, it is safe, but it gets personal. It's no longer about saying the lines. It's about really having an experience.

When I cast someone in a movie, I have to absolutely trust who they are as a human being. Trust is the intangible of moviemaking.

I'm not asking actors to act. I'm asking them to behave. I want to see their being, not how they can fake it.

To me, discomfort is a gift in the films that I'm making.

I feel similar to a lot of people. I don't feel unique. So what I'm trying to do in my films is provide something for people like me, but also a collection of scenes that instigate.

Making a film is like making a mixtape. You're collecting all this stuff and putting your favorite stuff into it: you have actors that you like, characters that you're interested in, moments you want to explore, themes you want to deal with, music that you want to put in. It's a pastiche of all these things that deal with how you see the world.

Every moment is, in some ways, eternal. Once you put something into the world, it stays there.

When I was a kid, I had two nightmares: one was nuclear war, and the other was that my parents would get a divorce; and when I was twenty, they split up, and I just felt like I needed to confront all those things that scared me as a kid - entering young adulthood and trying to have relationships.

If you make a movie that's close to your heart, it will be close to other people's.

When people think of biblical movies, they imagine sweeping epics like 'The Ten Commandments.' But 'The Gospel According to St. Matthew' is essentially a documentary about Jesus. It made me aware of how real life and personal experience can create more breathtaking, sensitive cinema than more sophisticated techniques.