Louis Leterrier Quotations

Great actors are so easy to direct. It's like they're big 747s that you just have to move left and right, and I don't really need to direct. I need to put them in the right costume, with the right haircut, in the right location, and with the right actor to act with.

It's true, I'm the youngest, highest-grossing French director. I have a few records, but no one knows or simply doesn't care. That's good, because I like that. Ultimately, I want to keep working, making a lot of movies, and get better at it. It's about finding great scripts and bringing them to life.

What's great about 'The Avengers' is that it's the next step. It's not just superhero fights super-villain and superhero wins. It's about superheroes that come together and interact. It's a clash of the egos. You could do 'Avengers 1' without a villain, just with all these guys coming together. They could sit down and just have a discussion.

I've started movies without screenplays both on 'Clash' and on 'Hulk,' and that is tremendously stressful because you have a tendency to overcompensate with effects. You haven't tested it in your head. You didn't run it over and over again and covered all of the plot holes and figure it out. It's a marathon that you sprint.

'Iron Man' was this fun, poppy thing bound to make a zillion dollars. And we were the other side of a superhero movie. More complex with The Hulk being this complex character - that's what it was.

'Captain America' I love, and that would be great, but c'mon, a Frenchman doing 'Captain America?' They would burn my passport.

I love comedies, and I like sometimes comedies have a tendency to get a bit lazy. The Other Guys was not lazy.

When I was in film school, I was learning more theory than practice.

Frankly, with HBO and Showtime and cable shows, the DVD box sets and all, you can have a product that doesn't make you feel like as soon as it's projected, it's thrown away. It's really a piece of art.

I think our movie, 'Now You See Me,' is an emotional movie rooted in smart and wits and fully amazing actors working perfectly together. It's like a supergroup of musicians.

I'm stuck somewhere a small island in the middle of the Atlantic where I'm alone. Because in France, they're like, 'No, you're not like us, you're not a French guy.' And in America, they're like, 'You're not like us.' I'm really alone in my little thing.

If I was to direct a movie about a super-confident guy, first of all I would hate that character. I can do a super-confident guy who crashes and burns and has to rebuild himself as somebody humble. But a super-confident guy that just gets more confident and gets the girl and the money and more success? That's not interesting.

My fear in converting it to 3-D is that people will say, 'Oh, it's the 3-D 'Clash of the Titans.' No, it's 'Clash of the Titans,' the movie, and then, on top of that, you have the 3-D conversion. The 2-D movie works as well as the 3-D movie. I want to make sure that people like the 2-D version.

Movies are not finished. They are abandoned. A movie is never finished.

I talked to Marvel about 'Thor' at one point, but I didn't want to do Thor. It wasn't something I read growing up, really; it wasn't one of the books I loved.

My favorite moment is when someone says, 'I like 'Unleashed.' 'Now You See Me' is so much fun.' That's what I want to do: smart, fun and big movies. I cannot lie, I love working with those big paint brushes. I have a blast doing these movies.

The new 'Avatar' BluRay is a lesson in filmmaking. It really is inspiring.

Even though I studied in New York and I know the American system, I come from France where I learned that with movies in France where the director is king. There's no such thing as a studio edit. It's the director's cut, period.

French cinema has always been very interesting, and it's still very powerful. I think it goes to show that it's great to still have a cinema that doesn't try to emulate, for example, American cinema.

I did my 'Hulk,' but it was not easy. If I do another Hulk film it will always be compared to the Ang Lee thing, and my first one... if I come back, I'd love to do another superhero, something different that I can really put my touch on.

I feel like the great filmmakers who have a true voice, yeah they take the notes, they understand the notes, but it's really about the notes underneath the notes. When you do a test screening and somebody says, 'Well, I didn't like the love story,' but it was probably just too long.

I like the idea of a TV show. You take time to get to know your characters. You can introduce a lot of characters. You don't need your three-action set pieces that you usually need for movies.

I'll say it, I love working with actors, I'm a fan of actors. They bring so much, and they can also break a movie, but when it works I give it all to the actors. I'll say it, I think that 'The Transporter' is great not because of my direction, it really is great because Jason Statham was great in it.

I'll tell you what, I had complete control on 'Unleashed.' I directed, produced, chose the musician, picked the costumes, and everything. I never had anyone saying, 'I don't like this and I don't like that.' The studio, Universal, were easy. It was this weird movie no one cared about.

I'm one of the lucky directors that pretty much every movie I've done has started a franchise. But I never think this way. I think that's the way you break it, if you go, 'then at the end, at the end we'll see you later.' I was forced to do it in 'Clash of the Titans.'

When you do a first movie, you're contractually supposed to do the second one and then you don't do it, you become an executive producer. That's why there are a ton of directors who have executive producer credits on other movies.

I don't want it to be 'Oh, that's the one-shot movie,' ... I don't want to show my directing. I want a great story. A great screenplay. I want it to be amazing. Then, when audience members go see it, they're really entertained and hypnotized for an hour-and-a-half. They come out and their friends say, 'Did you realize the camera never cut back-and-forth?'

He's a super, super professional. He will go over and over a scene again. He can become black and blue. In one scene, we did more than 150 shots in two days. That was crazy for an action scene. He was hurting so much. But he knew we had to have this scene and he knew this would be one of the best fights of the movie, so he kept on going, and at the end of the day he almost fainted. He was in so much pain.

He is the Transporter. Without Jason Statham, this movie would be a straight-to-video ... horrible film. At least the first one, you know, I was so afraid, when I read the screenplay, of what it was. Then Jason came in.

I think the next level of action movies is actually something I'm working on. It's a one-shot, continuous, hour-and-a-half action movie, non-stop. You don't cut away.

Jason is very much like that. He's very fun, happy and he's real. He's very grounded and knows he fell into acting by accident.

Corey said, 'You know Louis, I won't be able to do it,' ... 'If Luc finds out, I'm gonna get fired and so are you.'

FIU had the biggest pool in the area, ... It was the first choice and it was the best choice.

'The Transporter' 1 and 2 are the movies I do for Luc they're not the kind I would go see or make naturally, ... You ask Luc, 'How do you want me to do it?'

Now I'm going to put this all together.

That's what's good about this character. I love James Bond, but I hate that he's a misogynist chauvinistic pig. He goes from one woman to the next, cheats on her, doesn't care. I hate that. The Transporter is like the working man's James Bond. He is the real man.

I've done three action films but that's the pivotal moment,

I'm a 'Clash of the Titans'/'Star Wars' baby. I'm not a new 'Star Wars' baby. I'm not an 'Avatar' baby. That full CG doesn't work for me. I need interactivity. I need to feel the goo. I need to feel people coming out of animatronics and just interacting with props.

If you watch the movie and you know he's gay, it becomes so much more fun,

I don't want to be Luc's henchman. I want to look for freedom.

I just wanted to make a properly good movie, and not beg for the love of the fans.

Every actor is different so you cannot become best friends on Day One. You just have to learn to know each other.

Some directors are like it's their... nothing can change, nothing can move. I like collaborating, even when an extra has an idea, I like to bring to really have collaboration.

The movies like "Star Wars," for example or "Lord Of The Rings," they work because it's a a mix of everything.

All the superhero stuff is Greek myths and Greek gods, wearing tights and capes. That's what they are. That's what I gravitate towards.

The 2-D movie works as well as the 3-D movie. I want to make sure that people like the 2-D version. It's not a gimmick. It actually improves the viewing experience, but the movie stands on its own.

You always have three movies that you have to reduce into one. You have the screenplay. And then, you do a workshop and you add more scenes. And then, on the day you shoot, there's more action and interaction. It's like a souffle. It has a tendency to just grow and explode, and it's just too long.

Whats great about The Avengers is that its the next step. Its not just superhero fights super-villain and superhero wins. Its about superheroes that come together and interact. Its a clash of the egos. You could do Avengers 1 without a villain, just with all these guys coming together. They could sit down and just have a discussion.

Directing is like cooking, it's like cuisine. You cannot make a great dish with bad ingredients. I have great actors, and I'm putting them together. That's all I'm doing.

It's funny, I started by making fake American movies, 'The Transporter' and stuff like that. I was shooting in France, but everything was in English. But then afterwards, I was looking at real French movies like the Jacques Audiard movies.

Its true, Im the youngest, highest-grossing French director. I have a few records, but no one knows or simply doesnt care. Thats good, because I like that. Ultimately, I want to keep working, making a lot of movies, and get better at it. Its about finding great scripts and bringing them to life.

I'm a 'Clash of the Titans'/'Star Wars' baby. I'm not a new 'Star Wars' baby. I'm not an 'Avatar' baby. That full CG doesn't work for me. I need interactivity. I need to feel the goo. I need to feel people coming out of animatronics and just interacting with props.

The first cut was 2:10. It was boring. You know, they're looking each other, 'Should I drive now?' Then I realized that it's a thrill-ride of a movie, let's really make it a thrill-ride of a movie.