David Ayer
David Ayer
David Ayeris an American film director, producer, and screenwriter. He is best known for being the writer of Training Day, and the director and writer of Harsh Times, Street Kings, End of Watch, Sabotage, and Fury. In September 2014, Ayer was announced as both the writer and director for the DC Comics film Suicide Squad, scheduled for release on August 5, 2016...
NationalityAmerican
ProfessionScreenwriter
Date of Birth18 January 1968
CityChampaign, IL
CountryUnited States of America
Both my grandparents were officers in World War Two, and I would be personally offended if somebody distorted their achievements.
'Fury' whetted my appetite for a bigger canvas and this idea of world creation. You can do amazing things as a filmmaker if you have the proper tools, and those are time and money.
You hear again and again that audiences want to see movies that are different, and critics say we make the same thing again and again in Hollywood, then you go and make something different, and you get kicked in the gut for it.
Every movie is different. Every movie requires its own sort of photographic voice.
I'm a Veteran. I was in the Navy, in the submarine corps. I come from a military family. Both of my grandparents were in World War II and retired as officers. One fought in the Pacific and one fought in Europe. The whole family was in the war. I grew up exposed to it and hearing the stories, but the stories I heard weren't kind of the whole "Rah, rah, rah! We saved the world!" They were about the personal price and the emotional price.
You hear again and again that audiences want to see movies that are different and critics say we [directors] make the same thing again and again in Hollywood, then you go and make something different and you get kicked in the gut for it.
The movie on the screen is always going to be different from the movie in your head. How it makes you feel is what I'm after, what I'm chasing, and what I'm trying to construct.
The hardest thing, as a director, is that it's never right. Nothing you do is ever right. It's never exactly how you envision it. Making a movie is about making it better.
The worst part of directing is always seeing the first assembly. It's devastating. It really is. It's like going into the delivery room and you can't wait to see your baby, and it's a crocodile.
It's important for me to take very famous, well-known people and not have them play themselves and not have them be seen as themselves.
Stories of friendship are very interesting to me. Artificial families are something I like to explore. Whether it's a bunch of guys or a bunch of ladies, there's something interesting about that.
For me, I like to show what guys are like when no one is looking and how we really are, and that we can be emotional and have these emotional lives. I think it would be great to do a film where we see some females and what's going on there when we're not around.
In the writing phase, normally I try not to envisage any particular actors because I like to let the characters sort of reveal themselves in that process.
The worst pressure is the pressure I put on myself.