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Quotes by Director

"Well, you know the old line - to be nominated is what it's all about. I think that I've done pretty well - I've had about 46, or 47 nominations from my movies, and my films have won about 12 awards in total, so I don't really have any complaints."

"But, number one, I think traditional noir doesn't work in contemporary storytelling because we don't live in that world anymore."

"It's the unusual leading man. Most of the Hollywood leading men are powerful and capable and strong, heroes. He has this vulnerability, he's fragile, he struggles to find a way to live from day to day that we can identify with, that we can understand."

"We made connections between the monsters created by war and the monsters he created, the typical outcast that Whale was attracted to, and the monster in himself, that's inside all of us."
War,

"He looked like such a Republican. He dressed like Pee-Wee Herman. But had I known what he had done when I was reading about him, I might have thought different."

"An actor is never so great as when he reminds you of an animal - falling like a cat, lying like a dog, moving like a fox."

"Understand that sexuality is as wide as the sea. Understand that your morality is not law. Understand that we are you. Understand that if we decide to have sex whether safe, safer, or unsafe, it is our decision and you have no rights in our lovemaking."

"There's so few people in this town with a conscience."

"If government and media and all of us in the Australian tribe got together, and the rock industry, we'd just be the greatest cultural force the world has ever seen - we're such an amazing race."

"There's nothing more difficult to do than comedy."

"I'm terrible at horror movies, by the way. I get scared so easily."

"Whenever a situation develops to its extreme, it is bound to turn around and become its opposite."

"After Lock, Stock, all these really nasty small town characters came knocking at my door trying to tell me stories, and somehow I ended up with this guy whose brother was feeding people to pigs, and that's what he did to get rid of people."

"You walk through a series of arches, so to speak, and then, presently, at the end of a corridor, a door opens and you see backward through time, and you feel the flow of time, and realize you are only part of a great nameless procession."

"I have come to know Bugs so well that I no longer have to think about what he is doing in any situation."

"I got a nomination for director, which means the world to me; it's just the most exciting thing for me and my family. You do the good hard work, and the rest of it is something you shouldn't get too caught up in, but when it happens - boy! I respect it."

"You make the movie through the cinematography - it sounds quite a simple idea, but it was like a huge revelation to me."

"We want the best actor, and that's why Matt Damon worked so well in this role, because he's a great actor."

"I watched a couple of really bad directors work, and I saw how they completely botched it up and missed the visual opportunities of the scene when we had put things in front of them as opportunities. Set pieces, props and so on."
Work,

"I don't make films to win prizes. I make films to make films."

"British actors behave like Europeans; they are also extremely well trained."

"We really want to see how the idea of an intellectual action movie is received by the world."

"You have to show violence the way it is. If you don't show it realistically, then that's immoral and harmful. If you don't upset people, then that's obscenity."

"My Aunt Minnie would always be punctual and never hold up production, but who would pay to see my Aunt Minnie?"

"You have no idea how fragile an actor's self-worth is."

"I loved the idea of Travolta sitting on the kid's swing, pining away for his girlfriend."

"All my movies are difficult to classify because they are very eclectic in mixing genres."

"I look at other filmmakers and see skills in them that I wish I had but I know that I don't. I feel like I have to work really hard to keep myself afloat, doing what I do. But I find it pleasurable."
Work,
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