Tag Archives: Eli Roth

“Before I left for North Carolina, I called David Lynch to ask him what was the best piece of advice he had for any director. He repeated his mantra, ‘Keep your eye on the donut, not the hole.’ The donut, David explained, is the movie. The hole is all the other bullshit – the backstabbing, the drama, the agents, the negotiations, all the stuff that pollute your creativity, and if you’re not careful you can get sucked right into it. ‘The only thing that matters is the information recorded on those 24 square frames per second. That’s the donut. Keep your eye on the donut, not the hole.’ It turned out to be the best advice anyone ever gave me. In fact, we all used it as a mantra to get us through the shoot.”

—Eli Roth