I started in the P.A. world and craft service and storyboard artist, with the eye on the prize of directing. When I was directing second unit on Babel, I ended up casting most of the unknown parts. In these weird circles, I was this guy who found these kids on the streets.

Alfonso Gomez-Rejon

Categorized in : Kids Artist Eye

I was only driven to be the best and it was very disheartening sometimes that it took me so long to start getting my voice heard. That certainly started with television, but it was never because of where I came from, it was because people saw something in me.

Alfonso Gomez-Rejon

voice long people

If you can make the day, you can do whatever you want.

Alfonso Gomez-Rejon

do-whatever-you-want can-do want

I've been clawing my way to directing since I was a kid.

Alfonso Gomez-Rejon

my-way kids way

The fun of directing for me, other than working with the actors, is trying to extract those ideas that you have in your head and make them real.

Alfonso Gomez-Rejon

real fun ideas

I just wanted to make movies, but I never though about, "How am I being perceived because of my culture or my skin?"

Alfonso Gomez-Rejon

skins wanted culture

I'm a fan of musicals from great masters, and I was able to have an opportunity to express myself in musical numbers with Glee.

Alfonso Gomez-Rejon

musical opportunity numbers

Musicals and horror films can be very non-verbal and very pure cinema with movement. The camera is justified in being a character. It can really move and tell a story, and literally direct you to look here or there.

Alfonso Gomez-Rejon

cameras character moving

Horror allowed me to quickly switch gears.

Alfonso Gomez-Rejon

gears horror

It's a great asset to you, on your first film, to bring some people with you from the television world because they understand the speed that you have to work with to get your grand ideas down.

Alfonso Gomez-Rejon

people television ideas

As a fine artist I was drawn to composition and technique. I would count the cuts.

Alfonso Gomez-Rejon

cutting technique artist

If someone already knows you from being in the trenches with you on this TV schedules, and then you have a little bit more time, it's a treat for them, as well, because they can give you more.

Alfonso Gomez-Rejon

schedules littles giving

At some point, you have an opportunity to not be a first-time filmmaker anymore. You can embrace the genre and show the world how you can tell stories on a bigger scale.

Alfonso Gomez-Rejon

stories opportunity world

It becomes an extension of your imagination to make something tangible and concrete.

Alfonso Gomez-Rejon

concrete tangible imagination

I don't set out to do something weird, but if you see something a certain way and it's a little left of center, and you can realize it, that's a real thrill.

Alfonso Gomez-Rejon

thrill real littles

I love visual stylists like Bob Fosse and Vincente Minnelli and Michael Powell & Emeric Pressburger with The Red Shoes and The Tales of Hoffman.

Alfonso Gomez-Rejon

stylist bob shoes

On some kind of unspoken, deep, deep level, I think we [with Ryan Murphy] have an aesthetic that we both understand or connect to. It's not that we see the world in the same way because we have very different points of view, but we're both visual stylists.

Alfonso Gomez-Rejon

different views thinking

TV is all new to me because I came from features.

Alfonso Gomez-Rejon

features tvs

NYU Film School was the way to learn about film, to be exposed to film, to go to repertory houses, to be exposed to New York and see films. I would go to the library and see one, two or three movies a day.

Alfonso Gomez-Rejon

new-york two school

To me film school was film history because there weren't a lot of books out there that I had access to.

Alfonso Gomez-Rejon

film-history book school

I still think that being thrown in a very competitive environment where you really have to see what you are made of - certainly when you come out of nowhere - was good for me.

Alfonso Gomez-Rejon

environment made thinking