Taylor Hackford: As a filmmaker, "no" is not in my vocabulary. I've go...

But, unfortunately, sometimes that affirmation creates a sense that you deserve special treatment and recognition in areas where you're not so talented.

Taylor Hackford

selfless recognition special

Ray Charles, in his own way, it's like at the beginning, Ray Charles changed American music, not once but twice.

Taylor Hackford

rays changed way

I feel very comfortable shooting music, and I think you can see that.

Taylor Hackford

shooting feels thinking

But a writer's contribution is literary and a film is not literary. When you take that stuff off the page, and cast the people who are going to fit into those roles, that's what being a director is.

Taylor Hackford

roles directors people

An actor has to embody a role.

Taylor Hackford

roles actors

It was the era of Tab Hunter and Rock Hudson; they all had a certain look.

Taylor Hackford

hunters rocks looks

The score is always the wonderful icing. The score tells you the emotional content of the film. What the characters don't say, the music can say.

Taylor Hackford

icing emotional character

This devil loves mankind because men are going to always make the choice that will send him into ascendancy. He's been winning the game for a long time.

Taylor Hackford

games winning men

But the process of making a film is not glamorous. Certainly not my films.

Taylor Hackford

glamorous film process

Because when you have millions of people with this kind of need for gratification, and the culture is saying that it's possible for everyone to satisfy all of their needs and desires all of the time, there are obviously going to be clashes - clashes of ego.

Taylor Hackford

ego desire people

I love actors and I understand what has to happen within a scene. Any scene is an acting scene and actors never act alone, so there has to be an interchange. If it's a dialog scene, if it's a love scene, it doesn't matter because you need to establish a situation.

Taylor Hackford

actors acting needs

Music has always been an important thing to me in my life and understand I've worked in the music business.

Taylor Hackford

music-business important-things important

I really believe you can predict when someone has a great attitude, a real well of talent.

Taylor Hackford

real attitude believe

My creative partner is a writer, and he's got an executive producing credit on this film. We've made three films together and I would never underestimate the impact of a writer.

Taylor Hackford

impact creative together

I make films about working class people. All my films have always been about that. For example, the brothel is a workplace. It's aberrant, but a workplace nonetheless. I was more interested as opposed to glamorizing and saying, oh, this is a great erotic place, it's a place of business. The commodity is sex.

Taylor Hackford

class sex people

Look at Walter Huston in The Devil and Daniel Webster: It's an incredible performance.

Taylor Hackford

incredibles devil looks

I also know what looks good before the camera, how to move the camera, and how to get a story on the screen.

Taylor Hackford

cameras looks moving

It's very clearly stated in the film: You make your own choices, and what you're always fighting is ego.

Taylor Hackford

ego fighting choices

The most disgusting, appalling horror of our world that we live in, to me, is sex trafficking and the enslavement of men and women, boys and girls, in the sex industry. That is the most horrific, horrific thing that's happening and it's happening in all of our towns here in Los Angeles, in New York, in London, in Paris, all over the world, and I think that's really what has to be addressed.

Taylor Hackford

girl new-york sex

Russell Crowe is very difficult, but it's worth it. He's the real thing. I can tell you this. Russell Crowe was just as difficult before he was an international star as he was afterwards.

Taylor Hackford

difficult stars real

As a filmmaker, "no" is not in my vocabulary. I've got to figure out a way.