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
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.
For me, directing is like writing with meat. I can write live, in real time, and change things and be confident that I'm helping the movie.
I like to do stuff real and practical and in camera, as much as possible. I like old school filmmaking.
I'm all about real drama, real performance, and real people, so my twist on this is: I'm creating a family, a brotherhood here. I'm creating a very real chemistry and I have this incredible ensemble of actors led by Will Smith, who are basically playing dimensional characters with lives and souls.
'Colors' is pretty good. It takes you inside the cop car bit. I like reality myself. I like reality-based kind of movies.
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.