I think the art of filmmaking is something you learn through actions, by doing it, not by learning theories. And as you do it, your mind starts to change.

The best way to learn something is from experience – to actually try doing the task or activity. Great learnings can come when you face challenge and difficulty and when you might not succeed.

Just make the film. Action is the first word you must learn. And the second is patience. As a filmmaker you must wait for many things. You have to wait for money, the weather, the cast, the release. So you need to have good patience. The process is so long and most of the time it’s frustrating. To be a filmmaker, you must first take action, then have the persistence to pursue it.

One thing I learned is that cinematography is not something you do by yourself. It’s a group [project]. You need to develop your own vision, but the key to a successful film is communication with your director and your team.

Try to learn all that you can learn, take advantage of all the equipment that you have, and learn how to use them. Find out what the engineers are doing. Find out what the producers are doing and learn it, learn your craft.

No one can teach you how to compose a shot. You are only guided by an instinct. It has to come from within. I learned cinema by working on my films. The best thing was that I bought my own camera, and since I was working on the digital medium, I had the freedom to experiment, shoot more.

You know, it’s a funny thing about filmmaking, you always think you know just about everything, and you’ve done just about everything ever, and then you realize with your next project, “Holy hell, I haven’t had this challenge yet!” So, I think what I’ve learned is never to assume I know everything. Even, in all modesty, it’s been a pretty extensive, long-running career and I’m very fortunate. Like I said, never ever assume you know what you’re doing until you’ve studied everything, because everything is different and everything is new, and every day is new. You have to be on your toes and smart about it. That’s what I’ve learned over all those years

I think I was around 17 years old when I had my first parts in feature films and that’s when I really started to get interested in all of cinema, not just acting. After high school, I went to film school for 2 years. That was a great moment for me because I discovered a lot of directors from around the world and a lot of different types of genre. It would’ve taken me a long time to make these kinds of discoveries on my own without school, so I’m really thankful. At the time, I wanted to express myself with my own films as a director, but as I was getting more and more offers as an actor, I had to stop those studies to focus on acting. I feel trapped now because I really enjoy acting. But it’s true, I wake up every morning with this idea stuck in my mind that I want to write and direct my own film one day. As I work more and more on different sets, I see how hard it is to be a director. It’s insane the amount of work and confidence that goes into it. I’m so respectful of filmmakers and I admire what they do. I hope that one day I’ll find the right subject and the confidence to try it. I’m still young.

Get as much work experience as possible, because that will teach you a lot about the industry.

Roll up your sleeves and work as a bouncer in a sex club or a warden in a lunatic asylum or a machine operator in a slaughterhouse. Drive a taxi for six months and you'll have enough money to make a film. Walk on foot, learn languages and a craft or trade that has nothing to do with cinema. Filmmaking — like great literature — must have experience of life at its foundation. Read Conrad or Hemingway and you can tell how much real life is in those books.

For young actors, the more you can stand around or sit there—-even when you’re not shooting-—just sit there on the set and shut up for three hours, you’ll learn more in one day than you’ll ever learn in film school.

The best way to learn was by looking, to become articulate in the language of sight. The eye could learn to look after itself. (p. 180).

Sometimes, the only way to learn something really well is to revert to the state of mind of a novice and reawaken to the raw observations that you have accumulated instead of relying on the conclusions you have reached from the exogenous premises absorbed through teaching and bookish learning.

Actually, for some time now I have given some thought to opening a film school. But if I did start one up you would only be allowed to fill out an application form after you have walked alone on foot, let's say from Madrid to Kiev, a distance of about five thousand kilometres. While walking, write. Write about your experiences and give me your notebooks. I would be able to tell who had really walked the distance and who had not. While you are walking you would learn much more about filmmaking and what it truly involves than you ever would sitting in a classroom. During your voyage you will learn more about what your future holds than in five years at film school. Your experiences would be the very opposite of academic knowledge, for academia is the death of cinema. It is the very opposite of passion.