Barry Sonnenfeld Quotations

We should all relax about life because you don't have a clue as to what's really going on.

When Frank the Pug is singing I Will Survive, the only reason it's funny is that Will is in that shot trying not to get angry. A shot of a dog singing I Will Survive on its own will not get a laugh.

By definition a sequel can't be original. So you've got to figure out what worked the first time around.

I really wanted Michael Jackson to be in the first Men in Black, but he didn't want to be considered as an alien!

Michael Jackson wanted to be in Men in Black II. He told me he had seen the first Men in Black in Paris and had stayed behind and sat there and wept. I had to explain to him that it was a comedy.

There's a series of children's books called A Series of Unfortunate Events, which is like an incredibly dark version of Roald Dahl. I hope to start directing it.

I play the father in the scene when Will and Tommy go back to Tommy's old apartment. It was a big mistake. I hope not to be in the next movie I direct.

I haven't read a review of one of my films for the best part of 10 years.

These movies are like my kids. I just love them to death. Some of them go to Harvard and some of them can barely graduate high school.

They want to let the audience figure things out and let the reaction shot get the laugh.

Will and Tommy Lee are the only actors I've ever worked with where neither of them want to say any lines.

It felt scary because there was no auditioning, no rehearsing.

I don't think Will does get upstaged because his reaction is always funnier than what is actually happening. That is also the reason Tommy is funnier than Will.

I was seeing a lot of really good things about Get Shorty when it came out, and my wife pointed out that if you validate the good reviews, you also have to validate the bad reviews.

Michael worked one day. Everybody was a little freaked out and nervous because he's a really big star. We were already working with really big stars, but Michael is Michael.

I'm not the one or two take guy, but I'm not the 20, 30, 50, 70 take guy either. If I do a bunch of takes, like more than five or six, it's usually for some technical reasons.

I don't believe in leaving a scene in because it was really hard to shoot, or because it's the reason you took the movie, or because you always wanted to work with an actor . . . If it's not making the movie work, get rid of it.

When you're done shooting, the movie that you're going to release when you're done shooting is as bad as it will ever be. And then through editing, and finishing the effects and adding music, you get to make the movie better again. So I'm really hard on myself and on the movie.

The first cut I do is usually between five and 10 minutes shorter then the cut that we release. Anything I think isn't working or might not work, I don't even put it in the director's cut. And usually it's the studio suggesting I put stuff back in, as opposed to studios saying, "You got to lose 40 minutes," they are always saying, "You've got to gain five minutes."

I'm an unusual director in that my cut is usually shorter then the final released film. I like short films.

When I move from being a cameraman to being a director I looked at a lot of other cameramen who tried to make the move. And in each case they moved up their camera operator to be the DP, which really meant they didn't want to give up being the DP, and really wanted to do both. And my feeling was if I was going to succeed as a director, I had to just be a director and give up the safety net of being a cameraman.

There is something about being a director where, for me personally, I get to . . . it's the closest I'll ever come to being able to be a stand up. And to use my particular sense of humor, and hear people laughing, without me having to stand up in front of an audience and tell jokes.

The weird thing is that I hate to fly, and the quote that I give people is that every time I get off a plane, I view it as a failed suicide attempt.

Growing up, my fascination was all things dinosaur, and as an adult, I've had some success making films about aliens, so this is a dream come true.

It always happens at the end that you're always under the gun because of various schedules and all that.

I don't believe in aliens living on planets as such, but I do believe there's stuff going on in this room that none of us have any idea about.

We live in the country. Occasionally I hear sounds at night, so naturally I send my wife downstairs to check it out whilst I hide in the cupboard.

Michael still agreed to be in it as long as he could wear a black suit-that's all that mattered to him. It was very funny and entirely Michael's idea.

Will asked me if his two kids could be in the movie, so I put them in a scene towards the end where Will, Tommy, and Rosario are in Manhattan.

We had to retain the sense that no one really knows what's going on, that in New York City, in the world, there are aliens, strange events.