"Nobody taught Picasso how to paint - he learned for himself. And nobody can teach you to be a producer. You can learn the mechanics, but you can't learn what's right about a script or a director or an actor. That comes from instinct and intuition. It comes from inside you"
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Dino De Laurentiis is selling a certain kind of producer mythology: the mogul as born animal, not trained professional. Invoking Picasso isn’t just name-dropping genius; it’s a strategic move that drags film producing out of the realm of spreadsheets and into the romance of pure creation. If a painter can’t be “taught,” then a producer - typically framed as the money-and-logistics person - gets rebranded as an artist with taste, nerve, and a private radar for greatness.
The intent is partly defensive, partly aspirational. Defensive because producing is often treated as managerial glue work, the unglamorous circuitry behind the image. De Laurentiis insists the real job isn’t mechanics (budgeting, scheduling, dealmaking) but judgment: deciding what’s right about a script, a director, an actor. That word “right” matters. It’s not “good” in an objective sense; it’s “right” as in felt, sensed, aligned with an audience you can’t fully predict.
The subtext is gatekeeping with a grin. By locating the core skill “inside you,” he elevates instinct into credential and quietly dismisses outsiders who want a checklist for taste. It also flatters the producer’s most valuable asset: the ability to take credit for other people’s brilliance by claiming they recognized it first.
Contextually, this is old-school cinema confidence: the era of larger-than-life producers who gambled big, curated talent, and treated risk as a personality trait. It’s a worldview shaped by hits, misses, and the hard truth that nobody can quantify why a story suddenly catches fire - until it does.
The intent is partly defensive, partly aspirational. Defensive because producing is often treated as managerial glue work, the unglamorous circuitry behind the image. De Laurentiis insists the real job isn’t mechanics (budgeting, scheduling, dealmaking) but judgment: deciding what’s right about a script, a director, an actor. That word “right” matters. It’s not “good” in an objective sense; it’s “right” as in felt, sensed, aligned with an audience you can’t fully predict.
The subtext is gatekeeping with a grin. By locating the core skill “inside you,” he elevates instinct into credential and quietly dismisses outsiders who want a checklist for taste. It also flatters the producer’s most valuable asset: the ability to take credit for other people’s brilliance by claiming they recognized it first.
Contextually, this is old-school cinema confidence: the era of larger-than-life producers who gambled big, curated talent, and treated risk as a personality trait. It’s a worldview shaped by hits, misses, and the hard truth that nobody can quantify why a story suddenly catches fire - until it does.
Quote Details
| Topic | Art |
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