Gus Van Sant

Gus Van Sant
Gus Green Van Sant, Jr.is an American film director, screenwriter, painter, photographer, musician and author who has earned acclaim as both an independent and more mainstream filmmaker. His films typically deal with themes of marginalized subcultures, in particular homosexuality; as such, Van Sant is considered one of the most prominent auteurs of the New Queer Cinema movement...
NationalityAmerican
ProfessionDirector
Date of Birth24 July 1952
CountryUnited States of America
movie nice actors
If a movie isn't released, it's one thing, but if you know it will be, it's nice to have closure and see it come out.
stuff actors department
My department is to get actors to do stuff.
movie hunting actors
I'd come into filmmaking as a painter so, for me, making 'Good Will Hunting' was experimental because I didn't know how to do it.
trying stories actors
I'm usually trying to react to what the actors are coming up with. And then the environment, and then the story.
movie viewpoints actors
Even when you're making a movie about life, death is a presence, and I guess it's part of my dramatic viewpoint. I'm not sure why exactly.
reading character actors
A lot of times, you're not necessarily off the page because you haven't been able to take the time to prepare a character. It's very easy to find even great actors reading it more like a reading. Things aren't really coming alive yet, even though you know they will.
extension films originally sort
I was originally a painter, and I made films sort of as an extension of that, and then I started to try to make dramatic films because the early films were experimental films.
check scene watching whether
Usually, when I read something, I'm looking for the story first. And then, when I re-read it, I check every part of it to see whether every scene is necessary. You imagine yourself watching the movie, to see whether or not you're losing the through-line of the story.
You know, I don't think I had a concept of what I would be or do.
approving characters classic direct inventions remind shoot simple watch
I don't usually direct actors in the classic sense of that word. Instead, I try to remind the characters before the shoot what's going on in a very simple way. I then watch them, their inventions as actors, approving or not approving what they're doing.
chose material million
I did 'Mala Noche' as a way to do something that was outside of the system, because I was outside of the system, and I deliberately chose material that Hollywood wouldn't touch in a million years.
guy leading positive somebody supposed
I had never had a positive leading character - somebody that wasn't an antihero, or who wasn't more of a guy that you're supposed to be on the side of.
There's always a risk if you don't do things the way you've done things before.
bigger california death less lots stuff valley
Death Valley is really wide-open - it's bigger than Rhode Island - and it's less a part of California than an ungoverned territory, so there's lots of weird cops-and-robbers stuff going on.