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
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.
As a writer, you have to be willing to kill your darlings, and I'm a writer first. As a director, I've got no problem cutting the scenes.
You don't want to get too far ahead of the audience and you don't want the audience to be ahead of you. So, that balance is difficult and it takes a lot of work and tuning in the edit, to get the right balance.
When I make a movie, it's almost a relief to get shooting 'cause the hell is over, or part of the hell is over.
You never know what you have until you put it in front of an audience. That's the truth. That's the truth of filmmaking and that's why you make movies, for an audience to, hopefully, enjoy it.
When you put a movie together, you're continually screening it for yourself and you're screening it for other people. It's like a video game power meter. When the power bar starts going down, you've gotta look at what's going on.
You can't go back. Once it's done, it's done. I'm sure there will be things that I would love to change, in the future, but each movie is a snapshot of its time and the resources, and you do your best on it.
You make a movie and it's like convincing people to go on an expedition with you. You think you know where it's going to end up, and you're hoping and guessing. But, when people trust you and get involved, based on that trust, it's a really nice feeling to be able to have everything pay off.
I think a good director can embrace any genre and it's the kind of thing where you always want to do something different. You always want to challenge yourself.
When you talk to people who have been in combat, there's a sensory overload that happens. The color becomes vivid. Sounds become more pronounced. People talk about how, for them, the war was technicolor and real life was black and white after the war.