Wolfgang Petersen is a German film director, producer and screenwriter. He was nominated for two Academy Awards for the World War II submarine warfare film Das Boot. 

The acting is something that will always be a part of my life, but the writing gives me a lot more creative freedom. You're a pawn in somebody else's chess game, whereas as a writer and as a director, you get to call the shots. And that's very thrilling.

When I work I work very hard. So I look to work with people who have that level of dedication. And I depend on that from everyone. From the director to my crews that I work with.

I don't feel the need to direct. I tried to get other people to direct Dances but they wouldn't do it. They all thought it was too long. One director wanted to cut the Civil War sequence. Another thought the white woman was very cliched.

In the re-creation of combat situations and this is coming from a director who's never been in one being mindful of what these veterans have actually gone through you find that the biggest concern is that you don't look at war as a geopolitical endeavor.

Your crew becomes your family and you trust the director and the other actors on the set and it's a very safe place.

I've worked with many directors good ones and bad ones. So if I have a chance to work the good ones I better put myself in their hands and trust them because that's my big opportunity to be different and to be better than usual.

I have only one rule in acting - trust the director and give him heart and soul.

I wanted to trust in my partners and the directors and producers and do the best I can to deliver what I could deliver.

Although filmmaking is collaborative and involves trust ultimately it is the director who holds the whole picture together in their head.

It's all about the director for me we have to click. It's a trust thing. I'll say I'm ready to let down my walls. I'll cry for you as long as you need. But you're going to have to hug me afterwards.

I found it to be more challenging to be in a huge effects movie because a lot of the things aren't there.You have to trust the director and react to nothing.

I never practice before I never work hours on a script. I just choose my characters and trust them and after that it's about the director taking your hand.

It's not my job to try and alter the director's style - he's in charge and I'll always give him my trust.

Some directors cast you because they trust you to do the performance - but then they forget to direct you.

A lot of film directors are quite scared of actors. They are a bit of a nightmare sometimes but I like them. It looks like cunning but you try to get extra things from them all the time by stealth by making them feel confident so they trust you and you can push a bit.

Every time I make American film I just trust American directors and American writers.

Now therefore the Directors of the company are hereby ordered to see that precautions are taken to make travel on said railroad perfectly safe by using a screw with at least twenty-four inches diameter.

I only travel to good material a good director and a good company. I won't work in another country for a year any longer because I have a lovely wife and I adore her and I can't bear to be away from her.

Historically the director has been the key creative element in a film and we must maintain that. We must protect that in spite of the fact that there is new technology that's continually trying to erode that.

I was raised in New York City and raised in the New York City theater world. My father was a theater director and an acting teacher and it was not uncommon for me to have long discussions about the method and what the various different processes were to finding a character and exploring character and realizing that character.

I had come to the point when I realized it was unlikely that my film career was going to move beyond a certain level of role. And I was - because I had graphic instances of it - handicapped by the success of Star Trek. A director would say 'I don't want Jean-Luc Picard in my movie' - and this was compounded by X-Men as well.

The ladder of success in Hollywood is usually a press agent actor director producer leading man and you are a star if you sleep with each of them in that order. Crude but true.

The first thing is that we're being attacked by both the Writers Guild and the Producers Guild. Both of these groups are trying to diminish the importance and strength of the director. They're trying to do it through both frontal and side attacks.