James Vanderbilt: Things I’ve Learned as a MovieMaker

by James Vanderbilt | Published February 3, 2007

A scene from Paramount Pictures' Zodiac (2007).

There are a lot of smart and intelligent people working in this business who are excited to make challenging films. I wouldn’t have necessarily expected that from the outside—hearing the sort of horror stories about fatuous executives with terrible motives. And, to be sure, a lot of those exist. There are a lot of ego-driven actors and a lot of ego-driven directors, but there are also a lot of people who are really excited to do good work.

There are people who are excited to give a great deal of money to make a two hour and 40 minute film that deals with an unsolved murder investigation—not necessarily the greatest commercial bet in the world. But hopefully it pays off in being a good piece of filmmaking. That is really exciting to me. There’s a little bit of hope—a little bit of light at the end of the tunnel.

We’re not curing cancer here, you know? We’re making movies. Being able to have that attitude as opposed to “I’m the most important person in the world, and da, da, da, da, da.” No, we get to make movies; we get to tell stories. How great is that? I think that the real key is not losing that kind of excitement. I’m just still thrilled to be here. That’s pretty awesome for me.

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