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Daily Inspiration Quote by Taylor Lautner

"If I start thinking, 'Is this movie going to open? Is this movie going to do well?' I'm not focusing on the job. The job is to make a good movie"

About this Quote

Lautner is drawing a hard line between craft and commerce, and the bluntness is the point. In an industry that trains actors to track box office like sports stats, he frames anxiety about “opening” as a form of self-sabotage: a mental detour that feels responsible but actually drains attention from the only leverage an actor realistically has on set. The repetition of “the job” is a small rhetorical trick that turns a personal coping strategy into a professional ethic. It’s not dreamy idealism; it’s boundary-setting.

The subtext is a quiet repudiation of the star economy that helped make him famous. As a post-Twilight figure, Lautner’s career has existed under a microscope of performance metrics: opening weekends, franchise momentum, internet narratives about who “won” young Hollywood. In that context, saying “make a good movie” works like a reset button. It’s a way to reclaim agency when outcomes are hostage to marketing spend, release dates, critics’ cycles, streaming deals, and the unpredictable weather of audience mood.

There’s also a subtle self-protection here. Box-office obsession invites paranoia and second-guessing, especially for actors whose public value gets priced in real time. By refusing that calculus, he’s arguing for a healthier creative posture: focus on decisions you can control, let the marketplace do what it will. It’s the kind of pragmatic optimism that reads less like a slogan than a survival tactic.

Quote Details

TopicWork Ethic
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Citation Formats

APA Style (7th ed.)
Lautner, Taylor. (n.d.). If I start thinking, 'Is this movie going to open? Is this movie going to do well?' I'm not focusing on the job. The job is to make a good movie. FixQuotes. https://fixquotes.com/quotes/if-i-start-thinking-is-this-movie-going-to-open-154182/

Chicago Style
Lautner, Taylor. "If I start thinking, 'Is this movie going to open? Is this movie going to do well?' I'm not focusing on the job. The job is to make a good movie." FixQuotes. Accessed February 3, 2026. https://fixquotes.com/quotes/if-i-start-thinking-is-this-movie-going-to-open-154182/.

MLA Style (9th ed.)
"If I start thinking, 'Is this movie going to open? Is this movie going to do well?' I'm not focusing on the job. The job is to make a good movie." FixQuotes, https://fixquotes.com/quotes/if-i-start-thinking-is-this-movie-going-to-open-154182/. Accessed 3 Feb. 2026.

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Taylor Lautner on craft over box office
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About the Author

Taylor Lautner

Taylor Lautner (born February 11, 1992) is a Actor from USA.

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