I'm not good when idle.

I had a breakdown after making 'Atonement.'

Most actors hate the feeling of being handled.

Modern, not bottom-dwelling literature like a carp.

I feel more in touch with the world when I'm filming.

I like the idea of doing something outside my comfort zone.

My first cut that I showed the studio was probably 2hrs 20min.

I don't make a division between an art film and commercial art.

An artist needs to live to create, and to live means to suffer.

That luxury, ossified Los Angeles world isn't good for the soul.

I think Pan is a superhero movie; I mean, the kid flies in the end.

I'd like to make the film of Sam Selvon's book 'The Lonely Londoners.'

My father was 65 when I was born so we didn't have much time together.

I'm interested in people with very exceptional world views or realities.

I worked hard, but I was lucky the right people happened to see my work.

I've been lucky over the past few years. Things have just happened for me.

I was known for a while for doing very long takes, especially after Atonement.

I find man's inhumanity to man extraordinary,,, I can't get my head around it.

Every time I make a film, I feel it gives me the chance to learn something new.

I was never a kind of superhero fan much growing up, I'm not a kind of comic book kid.

I've made some films that were very much image based: 'Anna Karenina' and 'Pan,' for instance.

I was really excited to try 3D and play with it really, again, experiment formally with that extra dimension.

I wouldn't presume to know something, but I have lots to learn and that's what I attempt to do through my work.

I find men odd. I don't really understand men. I kind of feel like I understand women better than I do men, really.

Fairy tales to me are never happy, sweet stories. They're moral stories about overcoming the dark side and the bad.

I couldn't be a cameraman or a designer or an actor - I have to be a director because I learned how to do that from my dad.

I find it ironic that happy endings now are called fairytale endings because there's nothing happy about most fairytale endings.

I fell in love with film and its potential. The idea of putting one image next to another image and creating meaning blew my mind.

'Hanna' was nice. It was Saoirse Ronan's idea. Usually, the director casts the actor, but in this case, the actor cast the director.

I was once called a hack, and when you put as much emotion into a piece of work as I do, to be called a hack is really heartbreaking.

With 'Atonement,' I put a lot of pressure on myself, and then I made an advert for Chanel, which 'broke the camel's back' emotionally.

I think maybe I might tackle something that doesn't reach down to a very, very young audience, like more of a kind of teenager and upwards.

3D doesn't work quite so well with quick cuts and I probably would have done some longer takes had I really taken that information onboard.

I see the job of directing as being one of creating the right atmosphere, creating an environment where people can realize their full potential.

You need a pulse in a film. If I see a film that doesn't have rhythm, it's like listening to music that doesn't have rhythm; it doesn't really work.

Generally, I've never known quite how to fit in in civilian life, but on set, making a film, I know exactly where to go, how to behave and how I fit.

I'm quite spontaneous in my decisions often. Your career is kind of what happens whilst you're busy developing other screenplays, and so it came out of the blue.

I think my dyslexia was a vital part of my development because my inability to read and write meant that I had to find knowledge elsewhere so I looked to the cinema.

When I left college, I though that I would be immediately embraced by the film world and instead found myself sitting in a squat for three years not knowing what to do with my life.

I consider all drama to be the opportunity to see the world from another person's point of view. That seems to be the point of drama, really. And thereby to encourage understanding and even love.

Most of my choices come about through some kind of intuition or instinct, and if I need to, I'll post-rationalize them, intellectually, afterwards. But generally, they come about just by feeling.

There's good art and there's bad art. A lot of action films are bad art, but Paul Greengrass showed us with the Bourne films that it's possible to make an action film with a political, social conscience.

One of the things I really love about 3D is that because as we grow older on eye weakens more than the other, 3D becomes more difficult for adults to watch than it is for children who have very balanced eyes often.

Pride' is my first film with a happy ending. Before, I naively thought they were a cop-out, but now I've come to believe that happy endings and wish fulfilment are an incredibly important part of our cultural life.

'Pride' is my first film with a happy ending. Before, I naively thought they were a cop-out, but now I've come to believe that happy endings and wish fulfilment are an incredibly important part of our cultural life.

I think that people are still trying to understand each other and overcome prejudices. And people are still, most important, loving each other. And that is today as it was yesterday and will be for another 200 years.

I'm very interested in dance, and I'm very interested in how people express themselves through movement. And of course, cinema is a kinetic art form. It's almost the point of cinema - it's time-based and movement-based.

It's not something someone sets out to do - I never really set out to make movies about strong fighting women, but it just seems to happen that way. I've certainly known some, and I think my sister was probably a big influence.

I kind of muddled through 'Pride & Prejudice,' but with 'Atonement,' I knew what I was doing. That makes it sound like I had no doubt. I had doubts - I didn't know whether it would work. But I knew exactly what I wanted to try to do.

I think people are at their most creative when they're relaxed. I don't believe that tension is good for creativity. Everyone is relaxed and therefore can feel able to express their own individual creativity and lots of ideas come in. It's a joy like that.

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