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
I've been in the game long enough to know what elements you have to package together to get a movie into production.
Both my grandparents were officers in World War Two, and I would be personally offended if somebody distorted their achievements.
'Sabotage' was a work for hire. It wasn't my original idea or script or anything.
'Sabotage' was an opportunity. That was journeyman work, but the irony is I learned more off that movie on what filmmaking is and isn't than everything else combined. A lot of lessons, and it will impact me for the rest of my career.
'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.
My father died when I was really young, on Christmas Day.
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.
World War II was just as dirty and brutal as Vietnam, just as confusing.
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.