"Of all the stars whom I worked with, I think Steve knew better what worked for him on the screen than any other. He had such a sense of what he could register, and that helped a lot in terms of shaping the character and the script"
About this Quote
The subtext is power, but not the loud kind. Wise frames Steve (almost certainly McQueen, given the era and the nickname) as a collaborator who arrives with a built-in editorial sense: he can predict what will survive the lens, what will read as false, what will become iconic. That’s a form of authorship. It also suggests why stars so often reshape projects: not through ego alone, but through an instinct for the audience’s attention economy. If McQueen knows what “works,” he can steer the film toward that frequency.
Wise, a filmmaker known for disciplined control, lets slip a pragmatic truth about Hollywood’s best performers: the most effective stars aren’t just interpreters of a script; they are curators of their own image. The line flatters Steve, sure, but it also flatters the medium - implying that cinema rewards those who understand its physics.
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Citation Formats
APA Style (7th ed.)
Wise, Robert. (2026, January 15). Of all the stars whom I worked with, I think Steve knew better what worked for him on the screen than any other. He had such a sense of what he could register, and that helped a lot in terms of shaping the character and the script. FixQuotes. https://fixquotes.com/quotes/of-all-the-stars-whom-i-worked-with-i-think-steve-159595/
Chicago Style
Wise, Robert. "Of all the stars whom I worked with, I think Steve knew better what worked for him on the screen than any other. He had such a sense of what he could register, and that helped a lot in terms of shaping the character and the script." FixQuotes. January 15, 2026. https://fixquotes.com/quotes/of-all-the-stars-whom-i-worked-with-i-think-steve-159595/.
MLA Style (9th ed.)
"Of all the stars whom I worked with, I think Steve knew better what worked for him on the screen than any other. He had such a sense of what he could register, and that helped a lot in terms of shaping the character and the script." FixQuotes, 15 Jan. 2026, https://fixquotes.com/quotes/of-all-the-stars-whom-i-worked-with-i-think-steve-159595/. Accessed 21 Feb. 2026.
