28 Quotes by Lawrence Bender

Film is a very collaborative medium. If you’re smart enough, you learn how to maintain your vision while drawing resourcefully from all the people around you.

In 1998, I was screening ‘Good Will Hunting’ at Camp David. And I was saying, ‘Nice to meet you, Mr. President. Nice to meet you, Mrs. Clinton.’ Madeleine Albright, Sandy Berger, Senator Daschle. It was an extraordinary day.

Sure, ‘An Inconvenient Truth’ was my first documentary. What a wonderful experience. I saw Al Gore doing his slideshow presentation, and had this nutty idea that we had to make a movie out of it.

What I would say to filmmakers, if I may be so bold or so arrogant, is to draw inspiration from other filmmakers, but go to the place in your own gut where everything is nothing. That’s a very Zen thing to say, but that place of nothing is where real creativity comes out of.

I had one of those light bulb ‘a ha’ moments while screening ‘Good Will Hunting’ in Camp David in 1998 – Madeleine Albright and the Clintons were there, and I just became really inspired by all of these amazing people. I left the screening asking myself what I could do.

Honestly, when I had the idea to make ‘An Inconvenient Truth,’ and I was going out and raising the money, and I said, ‘I want to make a movie about Al Gore’s slide show, will you give me a million dollars?’ People thought I was insane, looked at me cross-eyed.

If you go back and look at President Reagan’s speeches, they bring you to tears almost.

I was with – he wasn’t the president then, but – Barack Obama, when he was running, in Washington, during Black Congressional Caucus Weekend, and did a panel about global warming with him. It was almost as if I switched careers for a while, and became a political activist.

It became my first passion, the first thing I really fell in love with. I joined the Ralph Robinson Ballet company, and then went to New York and became a dancer. I thought I'd die before I did anything else.