Daily Inspiration Quote by Robert Wise

"As I've always said, preproduction is so important. When you cast the actors, you've done much of the work. Now, you may need to guide them a little, take it up or down, have them go faster or slower, but the casting process is crucial"

Robert Wise, Producer

About this Quote

Preproduction gets treated like the boring part of movie magic: calendars, budgets, meetings, endless versions of a plan. Robert Wise flips that myth by arguing the real artistry happens before anyone calls action, and he makes casting the centerpiece. It is a producer's worldview with a director's edge: choose the right people and you are no longer forcing a performance into existence, you are shaping and refining something that already wants to happen.

The intent is practical, almost ruthless. Wise is protecting the set from chaos. If you have to "guide them a little", that implies the heavy lifting is not micromanagement or charisma at the monitor; it is judgment. Casting becomes an act of authorship. You are not just hiring talent, you are choosing the emotional vocabulary of the film. Get it right and direction is calibration: "up or down", "faster or slower". Get it wrong and every day becomes damage control.

The subtext also punctures the auteur fantasy. Wise, who moved between genres and scales (from The Day the Earth Stood Still to West Side Story to The Sound of Music), understood that a film's tone is carried by bodies and voices more than by any single directorial signature. His phrasing is quietly democratic: actors are not puppets, they are engines. The producer's power lies less in control than in selection, in building a system where the right choices make everything else look effortless.

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Robert Wise (September 10, 1914 - September 14, 2005) was a Producer from USA.

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