Mike Mills
Mike Mills
Michael Edward "Mike" Millsis an American multi-instrumentalist, singer, and composer who was a founding member of the alternative rock band R.E.M. Though known primarily as a bass guitarist, backing vocalist, and pianist, his musical repertoire also includes keyboards, guitar, and percussion instruments. He contributed to a majority of the band's musical compositions...
NationalityAmerican
ProfessionGuitarist
Date of Birth17 December 1958
CityOrange County, CA
CountryUnited States of America
It was pretty fun - good just playing with all these people at my level. It's nice playing against people I know will make me better. It's just good holding up the Vanguard tradition and giving my all here tonight.
Everyone talks to their dog, and then in your mind the dog talks back. A talking dog can provide the words that a stunted protagonist finds difficult to muster.
Films are tricky because for years you're getting told you're about to make it and you're about to be busy for four or six months or you're about to be on tour for press. But these things tend not to happen, and meanwhile you've said 'no' to many things 'cause you thought you were going to be busy, for years, for years this happens.
We all ended up where we wanted to be, but the path wasn't so straight.
I'd known Elliot for a while, ... He was kind of 'off the Earth' on the heroin thing.
I am definitely writing letters to lots of directors in my mind when I'm making a film. I'm chasing Woody Allen and Godard and Milos Forman and all these people.
I love being a writer-director. I couldn't imagine directing without writing it. You have to write and tell your stories - that's what directing is to me.
Shooting a film is like a kismet quest. You have thirty days and you need magic to happen. So that's why I wear suits. I'm praying to the gods, and I'm doing everything I can to respect the powers of the world.
Making a movie is so hard, you'd better make movies about something you really know about. And even more, it's really good to make movies about things you need to figure out for yourself, so you're driven the whole way through. It's going to make things more crucial for you.
I think I make films to help bolster and feed the part of me that wants to remain in a positive relationship with the world and to engage in it. So hopefully in non-sentimental ways, I'm trying to make something that helps make me happy.
I think Elliott's songs and The Spree's songs complement each other both chord and tone-wise, as well as with the goals of their music. In different ways, they both have written music that deals with being fragile. Yes, I think The Spree are all about fragility. As big and happy as they can sound, they're sort of 'The Fragile Army' to me.
L.A. is so isolated and unhip in a way; it gives you room to figure out who you are and explore more personal stuff.
He came through the door and he was really nervous, which again made me excited because, OK, this isn't someone who is professional and wearing a mask and being slick and all that. His first take was horrible, and I was totally crestfallen. I told him to stop acting, and he nailed it. It was a sort of 'meant to be' type of thing.
You have this 18-year old who is trying to figure out his life. But you also have these 40-year-olds who are trying to figure out their lives, and this whole myth of, 'Once I have a family, a house, a husband, this hole I felt will be filled up and I'll be OK,' ... At 40 they're, 'Wait a minute, it's not all OK, I still have all those problems. What do I do now?' And I'm really happy to have both of those problems and both of those ages in the same story.