Peter Berg

Peter Berg
Peter Bergis an American actor, film director, producer, and writer. He is known for directing films such as the black comedy Very Bad Things, the action comedy The Rundown, the sports drama Friday Night Lights, the action thriller The Kingdom, the superhero comedy-drama Hancock, the military science fiction war film Battleship, and the war film Lone Survivor. He also developed the television series Friday Night Lights, which was adapted from the film he directed. As an actor he is best...
NationalityAmerican
ProfessionDirector
Date of Birth11 March 1962
CityNew York City, NY
CountryUnited States of America
I'm happy for Stamford and sad for Greenwich.
I know that the last campaign involved extraordinary amounts of money, ... I have no intention of trying to match that.
Every movie has its own unique series of challenges.
The way you set up for a sequel is by having a successful film. The focus is on making a successful film, and making a film that travels around the world, and that people enjoy and have fun with, and that people are able to escape with.
I have a tradition of working with actors, over and over again. I've worked with Jason Bateman, over and over again. You get to know an actor, and you get a certain trust and a comfort, and you become really good friends, and you feel like you've got a short-hand.
I think the biggest challenge was being aware of a certain audience that was going to see this film [lone survivor]. There's a big difference from a typical movie, journalists and critics and film goers that go see it find that, that's the general experience you have as a filmmaker. So that just kind of proves my point that there's a really different audience.
One of the challenges assembling the film was that gun fight went on for three and a half hours and we obviously couldn't spend three and a half hours of the film with one gun fight. It was trying to figure out the balance of how much an audience could take before they either became repulsed or desensitized or bored or just overwhelmed.
I think I've been fortunate enough to have a fairly long career and hopefully I'm at the middle of it now. And I think I'm starting to develop a certain amount of experience and a certain amount of wisdom about kind of what really matters and what doesn't matter.
I tend to not have to handle things that are probably gonna end up being irrelevant, that aren't gonna have much to do with the film. I have probably a better understanding of really what does matter, when to pick my battles and when to kind of let them go.
I'm much more collaborative than I probably was when I was first starting, much more willing to say, "I don't know the answer to that." I have really talented people and let them do their jobs and not try to control everything as much as I did when I was starting. I was a bit more insecure.
Hollywood is not stupid, contrary to popular belief; it's really a lot of intelligent people trying to figure things out.
One of the things that's fascinating about making movies is a movie when it's done and you start showing it to people, it reveals its impact, which is often times not what you thought.
You're in the middle of making a movie and this part of the process is always very interesting. Because you think what you're making your movie is and then you start putting it out there, and then people tell you what your movie is.
The first movie I literally ever made in my life was about two guys playing Stratego with each other. I had all my friends dressing up like the military characters in the game. So 'Battleship' is really my second board game turned movie!