Skip to main content

Daily Inspiration Quote by Richard Linklater

"I did The Newton Boys and during the whole process of making the film, I may have spent a week in Los Angeles"

About this Quote

Linklater’s flex isn’t that he avoided Los Angeles; it’s that he barely had to acknowledge it. In one clean, offhand sentence, he draws a map of power in American filmmaking and then steps outside it. The line lands with the casual confidence of someone who knows the industry’s gravitational center and still chooses to orbit elsewhere.

Context matters: The Newton Boys (1998) was a relatively expensive studio-backed period film, the kind of project that typically drags a director into the endless meetings, networking rituals, and taste-making circuits of LA. Linklater’s remark quietly punctures the assumption that “serious” filmmaking requires full-time residency in the company town. He’s not ranting about Hollywood; he’s depriving it of oxygen.

The subtext is a philosophy of work: make the movie where the movie wants to live, not where the industry wants to manage it. Linklater’s career has long treated geography as creative infrastructure. Austin isn’t just a hometown brand; it’s a production ethos built on local crews, long-term relationships, and a slower, more author-driven rhythm. Saying he “may have spent a week” suggests LA’s presence was administrative, almost incidental - paperwork, not artistry.

There’s also a sly critique embedded in the understatement. If a director can shepherd a studio film with minimal LA time, then maybe the gatekeepers’ indispensability is overstated. It’s not anti-Hollywood so much as post-Hollywood: the quiet assertion that the work can happen elsewhere, and the culture might be healthier for it.

Quote Details

TopicMovie
SourceHelp us find the source
Cite

Citation Formats

APA Style (7th ed.)
Linklater, Richard. (2026, January 17). I did The Newton Boys and during the whole process of making the film, I may have spent a week in Los Angeles. FixQuotes. https://fixquotes.com/quotes/i-did-the-newton-boys-and-during-the-whole-80561/

Chicago Style
Linklater, Richard. "I did The Newton Boys and during the whole process of making the film, I may have spent a week in Los Angeles." FixQuotes. January 17, 2026. https://fixquotes.com/quotes/i-did-the-newton-boys-and-during-the-whole-80561/.

MLA Style (9th ed.)
"I did The Newton Boys and during the whole process of making the film, I may have spent a week in Los Angeles." FixQuotes, 17 Jan. 2026, https://fixquotes.com/quotes/i-did-the-newton-boys-and-during-the-whole-80561/. Accessed 7 Feb. 2026.

More Quotes by Richard Add to List
Linklater's Week in LA: Filmmaking Beyond Hollywood
Click to enlarge Portrait | Landscape

About the Author

USA Flag

Richard Linklater (born July 30, 1960) is a Director from USA.

24 more quotes available

View Profile

Similar Quotes