David Fincher Quotes

Quotes by and about David Fincher

(Continued from his main entry on the site.)

Fincher: "I'm a nurturer. I'm a calming nurturer."

Fincher: "I tend to over-intellectualize things."

Fincher: "My idea of professionalism is probably a lot of people's idea of obsessive."

Fincher: "Filmmaking encompasses everything ... [from] being painfully honest, unbelievably deceitful, and everything in between."

Fincher: "Entertainment has to come ... with a little bit of medicine. Some people go to the movies to be reminded that everything's okay. That ... is a lie. Everything's not okay."

Fincher: "You can do something that walks a line, and invariably, whatever that line is, it will be crossed by people who don't know any better and want to ape the success."

Esquire Magazine: "[In person Fincher is] socially adept. Friendly. Kind. Nice guy."

Paul Guyot: "Within the first thirty seconds of speaking with David Fincher I felt like I was talking to an old buddy. Something I'm sure wasn't reciprocated in the least. But you'd never know it. ... [He] was actually taking the time to, not only talk to me ... but to make me feel at ease."

Aaron Sorkin: "In a city where Schadenfreude brings out the very worst in all of us, you'll never hear David make a joke at the expense of another filmmaker. This is noteworthy because David doesn't like most movies. But he knows they were hard to make and he respects the people who made them."

Aaron Sorkin: "Everyone who works in Hollywood has two personalities: their real one and the one assigned to them by rumor. The rumor about David ... is that he's gruff, harsh, and difficult to work with. The truth about David is that he's warm, honest, and an exceptionally generous collaborator."

Rooney Mara: "[When I first worked with David Fincher I thought he was] very aloof, and I can respect that because I'm very aloof."

Rooney Mara: "He wants [to make real] what he sees in his head."

Esquire Magazine: "Fincher is deliberate and specific in speech. He measures his words. He works his fingers into his temples, then presses his thumbs over his eyes, building thoughts the way he constructs his mental scenes, laying out his plans."

Esquire Magazine: "By eighteen, Fincher was doing visual effects on an animated movie called 'Twice Upon a Time'. During lunch he'd find a way to eat with the producers, pitching them ideas. 'He'd use his hands and tell a story, and everyone at the table would be completely silent listening to him describe this movie idea he had floating around in his head,' says Ren Klyce, who met Fincher on the movie. ... 'He had this knack at eighteen to hold court in a very creative manner and suck people in.'"

Esquire Magazine: "He can be a brutish ascetic, denying himself the extravagance of letting stories unfold, approaching them as intricate mathematical problems: one method, one answer. 'Editing David's film is like putting together a Swiss watch,' says Angus Wall, the editor on Zodiac. 'All the pieces are so beautifully machined. He's incredibly specific. He never settles. And there's a purity that shows in his work.'"

Laura Ziskin: "There's what he thinks is right, and there's little else. If you have a difference of opinion, he'll listen politely, then tell you in no uncertain terms how completely wrong you are."

Fincher: "I don't believe in being the guy that everybody kowtows to. But I do believe in being able to say, 'Here are the things that I hold important in this,' and that people commit that to memory. I don't want to be in a position of having to have the same discussion about whatever it is time and time again. I feel like I go to a lot of trouble to elucidate why it is that I want things to be a certain, specific way."

Lynn Hirschberg: "[During casting for 'The Social Network'] Jesse Eisenberg sent a homemade tape of himself playing Mark Zuckerberg, and got the part without auditioning in person. Andrew Garfield ... also tried out for Zuckerberg, but Fincher felt he was openly emotional, and therefore intrinsically better suited to play Eduardo Saverin, Zuckerberg's former best friend and business partner. 'When you cast actors,' Fincher said, 'you try to find the quality you couldn't beat out of them with a tire iron. That's where you find the character.'"

Fincher: "[When I first met Trent Reznor] I thought he was very shy and self-effacing and quiet. ... He's very knowing and very wry and very wise. He communicates a lot with a very little smile. ... [He is] rigorously honest."

Fincher: "[Larry Summers] is a fantastically intellectually entitled guy who is withering in his contempt for people who ask stupid questions."

Fincher: "I don't have the Tom Hanks fans. When you make the kind of movies I make, you get weird letters from people."