60 Quotes by James Mangold

When I was making 'Cop Land' in 1996, people were asking what my next movie was, ... Without thinking, I said, 'I want to make a movie about Johnny Cash.'Ã

I didn't want to make a movie about what we already know.

He was much more concerned about protecting others than himself. The thing he would always say to me was, 'I don't care if I look bad. Just don't make other, innocent people look bad, because they were my mistakes.'

John always said whoever played him, 'make sure they hold the guitar like they own it, that they don't hold it like it's a baby,'

I saw those songs they sang together as love scenes.

I think one of the most courageous things about Joaquin in that scene is that he sounds not perfect, not at all. He's not brilliant from the get-go, but he's got so much room to grow. And we grow Johnny Cash in the movie - until, by the end, he's awesome!

John was not just a singer, but a songwriter, ... He was always riding this river of shadows in his writing. He was singing about a kind of pain everyone lives through.

June and John are the last generation who can sing about these things first hand, ... The fact is, these people grew up in a field and they were singing about what they saw.

That's the mythic album where you see his face, sweaty, looking dangerous, and he's there singing to murderers and robbers and sharing a good time with them. As a kid, how could you not be interested?