The Talks
Chris Sanders: “Every second counts”
Mr. Sanders, can animated films be just as emotionally effective as live action films?
Absolutely. Animation has a directness, it has an ability to get to the heart of something very, very quickly. There's something about the way that we relate to an image that is hand-painted or hand-drawn… It's different than a photograph. I don't exactly know what that is, but I think it's true nonetheless. Animation also has an endurance that is unusual. It tends not to age the same way, so even with older films like My NeighborTotoro or Bambi, these are films that are also relatively open and quiet, they're very spare in their dialog, but they're big emotionally.
I think some of the resonance also has to do with the soundtrack or musical elements, which often speak more than the characters themselves do.
Oh, definitely. When I made Lilo and Stitch, that was where my co-writer and co-director Dean DeBlois and I both learned that lesson. There was a moment in the film that was a turning point for a character that we had left off screen; we were being asked where the shot was, and basically said we didn't really know how to make it. We couldn't craft the dialogue correctly… Any dialogue we put in that moment felt clunky and awkward. And that was where Alan Silvestri, our composer, said, “Put it on screen and I'll say it.” And that was the revelation that changed everything for both of us. We realized that music was a voice. It wasn't just an assist in the background. And that led directly to “Forbidden Friendship.”
“The truth. The whole truth, and nothing but the truth, so help me God. And that’s it! May it be ugly, may it be beautiful, may it be perverse, may it be all of those things. That’s it, I can’t lie; it is what it is, unabashed, naked. I expect that of myself, that’s for sure.”
“I have an irrational fear of boredom. That’s why I now have this tattoo that says “Carpe Diem.” That’s what we should live by!”
“I think the key to having a successful career is to find the thing you do well and do it again and again for the rest of your life. But I’m interested in expanding my language as an artist and as a composer. And I try to expand it with every project.”
“One of the reasons why I have this much success is because I’m hard on myself. Until now, I never really saw myself as a talented chef! I don’t take the easy way. I put in the time. From the age of 17 until 23, I didn’t take any vacations, I had almost no days off.”
“There is something quite beautiful with the art thing, that you can only hold it back for so long and then you have to do it.”
“Making something or creating something is about looking and exploring the potential, and I want to do that right up until the day of the performance. And then when we’re performing, I want to do it a bit more. There’s no reason we can’t.”
“Risks are very important to me. It’s the only thing that will define the next career move or else I’ll be plateauing. I’ll be completely stale if I don’t take risks. And that’s not just my career.”
“My whole purpose in life is to communicate what I’m doing. I see myself as a modern nomad and a soldier at the same time. Being mainstream won’t change me because once I have something to perform, a task, then I’m a soldier. And I’ve always been a soldier.”
“Any kind of quest for achievement has some kind of a personal drive behind it. I'm sure some people would say that it's obviously about the ego, but on the other hand, it's not as if I'm competing against anybody. It's not as if I'm trying to outdo anybody. It's just me trying to do something to see if I can.”
“I give my best performances when I am almost snapping. It is like tuning a violin. You want that note from a string so you tune it until it almost breaks – but then you get that note. It is dangerous, but it is also sublime.”
“I think all actors have to be dreamers. I think every citizen of every kind of society has to dream. If you stop dreaming, it’s over.”
“I have the freedom to express myself. And it doesn’t matter if somebody’s going to pay me or pat me on the back for it. I chose to do things that I embrace, that I feel passionate about for whatever reason and I create my freedom around that.”
“I try not to look back. I’m looking forward. I’m worried more about what I’m going to do next week than I am what I did last week. There are too many things to do. Looking back is for everybody else.”
“I think the best you can do for yourself is let your subconscious drive you, instead of doing things because you want to achieve some sort of glory.”
“For me it’s a lot about physicality, about how I feel. When you have these hardships or when you see someone you love in pain or you struggle, all the petty shit goes away. You are like, “I can’t believe I was worried about this other thing,” when you see what really matters.”
“In life it’s about opening yourself up. It’s about tapping into your instincts and your energies. I think I got very good at that. I have to be open and I have to be open to the possibilities.”
“I think you always have to have risk when you’re creating a piece of art. Without that, I don’t understand really what the drive is to succeed. It’s the risk factor that, weirdly, keeps you feeling safe. It keeps you on your toes.”
“At what point do you feel you’ve achieved it and you can move on? I think you usually have to start thinking, ‘So what’s next?’”
“I don’t like plan Bs. If you don’t have a plan B, then you can’t take plan B. Don’t give yourself an out.”
“The only thing that you have to be very sure of is that nothing can go wrong. You can’t get in the way of the whole thing by messing it up with great ideas or smart moves. Absolute trust is, I think, the crucial ingredient.”
“I always try to concentrate on the process and where the real goal is, which is trying to get up every day and be the best possible version of myself and do the best work I can do.”
“When I was training as a ballet dancer, I know that I was often tired or in pain, but you just work through it. You go home crying and your parents almost want you to quit but then you just do it. And I use that stamina now as an actress because it’s normally quite uncomfortable to make films.”
“Even though I wanted to be minimal, for the first 20 years in my career all I did was add things; more courses, more ingredients. Only three years ago I was confident to start focusing on removing, and this is when I finally created a dish where I felt like I achieved what I tried to do for 23 years.”
“My work is integrated completely into my life and vice-versa – I’ve been working since I was sixteen and my work is my life and my life is my work. It made me who I am.”
“Sometimes when you lose faith and you understand that something will never be possible the way that you dreamed, but you keep trying, suddenly one thing flips and everything re-accommodates. It totally flows. You don’t give up — and suddenly it’s almost a transcendental thing.”
“I like the accidents, the things that happen by chance. I let the life come to the picture and the creativity flow.”
“In your life there’s a moment when the door opens and you need to walk through the door then. You can’t say then, “Well, I’ll go through it two years from now. I’ll do it, I’ll save up some money...” Because by then the door will be closed.”
“I would say that a strong work ethic is a vital ingredient for success. That’s something I was born with, I’m convinced of it; it was nothing that I acquired. If you take on anything, you try to do it your best.”
“The recognition of luck is extraordinarily important — as well as making the best of it and creating to the best of your capabilities on that one opportunity you’re given so that it doesn’t end up in the museum of errors.”
“I never have been into trends. Not now or then! I was born like that, in fact, if I see too much of something, I change it. I like independence. I love the eccentrics. Find your style and stick to it.”
“It’s important to say no – especially earlier in your career – because life is short and you want to be proud of things that you have done, not ashamed of them.”
“I learned by doing. The rest is doing experiments and testing and not giving up. If something is not satisfying start again, turn everything upside down and find a new formula for printing. Everything is learning by doing.”
“I have a moral standard of my own. I know the difference between right and wrong, I know what I feel comfortable with. And if you live up to your own moral standard, you’re going to have a more comfortable life.”
“My work and my life are the same thing to me. I don’t have a life on one side and work on the other side. My entire life has been my work. I don’t have a family, I am by myself, I have made very strict choices.”
“Everybody is amazing at something — some people write music, some people are leaders, some people raise children, some people cook food. If you find what it is that you can offer to your fellow.”
“Of course we all do stupid things when we're young, but that's your way to find boundaries, you know. Have I done stupid things I regret? Yeah. But I can learn from those mistakes and grow. That's what it’s all about.”
“If I knew that tomorrow a meteorite would destroy our planet, I would start shooting a new film today.”
“I used to tease the other kids because I played better than them. Then my father said, ‘Come here. Don’t do this with the kids, because God gave you the gift to play football. You didn’t do anything. You have to respect people, be a good person. From now on, you must be this example.’”
“I’m doing things more personally than ever before because that’s what my project is based on, that’s who I am and I have never been this happy my whole life — but it was a long road to get here.”
“When you are at a crossroads, mistakes can help you decide the right way forward, and I think I really grew when I understood that I need to accept my mistakes.”
James Cameron: “All my movies are love stories”
Mr. Cameron, what drives you to constantly push the limits of innovation in film?
I think it comes from my desire as a kid to do something artistic that would amaze people, you know? I would go to movies that would amaze me, whether that was a Ray Harryhausen film or Stanley Kubrick’s 2001: A Space Odyssey. I wanted to do nothing less than that. Those are the projects that I love: figuring out what might just be possible but hasn't been done yet. I have always wanted to create new things, new hardware.
Even as a kid?
Of course, I used to build robots out of cardboard boxes. I always had some crazy project. When I was 10, I wanted to build an airplane. We found a bunch of plywood in a field and I got the kids in the neighborhood to help me saw it up and we built an airplane. It never flew, of course, but we did hang it from a tree! I was always fascinated by technology, robotics, optics, all of those sorts of things, so you know, in high school I wasn’t on the football team but I became the president of the science club — even though the science club really only consisted of me, a girl from Czechoslovakia who didn’t speak English, and some lab rats. (Laughs)
Simon Rogan: “Flavor is everything”
Marie-Louise Sciò: “It’s much more personal”
Stephen Fry: “It releases you from loneliness”
Nilüfer Yanya: “You want to feel something”
Darcus Beese: “Create your own luck”
Nicoletta Manni: “There’s always more to discover”
Cecilia Bartoli: “I am hopelessly curious”
Marin Alsop: “I bring the art to life again”
