Quotes

A friend asked me why I thought I'd been able to direct films for 30 years and I really didn't have an answer. It is a very difficult industry and grinds up talent unmercifully.

There's one thing now that I experience every day when I'm making a film. I get up and think to myself, am I going to be able to do it today? I figure as long as I have that fear, I'll be alright.

I like a lot of takes. I just go on until the actors get it right.

Isn't that what Joan Collins' success is based on? People love bitches. The more dreadful they are, the more awful things they say, the more heavenly they are.

I can't write, I don't think I'm even particularly good at telling a writer what's good or what's missing. So, actually having someone who can do that is a godsend.

I never expected to become a director. It never occurred to me to come to America, to Hollywood. It's all been a wonderful accident. I'm still amazed every time I finish a film. I'm the opposite of Steven [Steven Spielberg] who's obsessed about making films since he was a child. It's all come as a surprise; I'm finding my way through the dark.

Well, while you're shooting, you're bringing a story to life. It always goes in slightly unexpected ways. You're trying to make sure everybody's in the same film. John Gielgud always said, 'If you're lucky, you know what film you're in.' You want everyone comfortable with each other, agreeing on circumstances. You're asking actors, indeed, everybody on set, to be intimate, to be a family in a world that's the product of their mutual imagination. You're the patriarch, holding the whole thing together, depending on everyone being collaborative. In editing, you discover what you've got, what you've missed, what you should have done, things you hadn't thought of, holes that need filling. That's why Woody Allen re-shoots. It's done in light of what he's learned, because you make films in the dark, learning as you go. I'm always so curious to see where it's leading. To find out, you must let go, must relinquish control and be open. When I started opening up about 25 years ago, my films got better.

I like making films about different cultures. I'm interested in things that I've never encountered before. I try to put myself in the audience's position.

The British Film Institute is under-funded. It needs money. It's as simple as that. It's our lives, our culture. The government does not prioritize this highly enough.

The only way you can learn about making films is by making them, by putting your stamp on the thing.

Film schools didn't exist when I was growing up. I learned by working with clever people. Good writers and cinematographers. And before them, [British directors] Karel [Karel Reisz] and Lindsay [Lindsay Anderson], who gave me a kind of foundation course.

I should never have done Mary Reilly (1996). I knew that before I started. It was full of great design and photography, but it should have been a little BBC film.

[on his first high-budget Hollywood feature Hero (1992)] I didn't know how you filmed a plane crash. And it's not that Dustin [Dustin Hoffman] was difficult, but having big stars skews the movie; you have to concentrate on this enormous investment. I'm sure I could handle it now, but at the time it knocked me down like a train. In My Beautiful Laundrette (1985) and Dangerous Liaisons (1988) you could see where the money was going but with "Hero" (1992) we had $42m to deal with, and it was flying all over the place.

[2016 interview] I live in London. So, whether I like it or not, I am a member of the metropolitan elite. If I were anywhere else in the country, I'd hate me.

[on Hero (1992)] I went straight to Dublin to shoot The Snapper (1993) with the same team. It was effortless. That felt like coming back home to language and honesty. Look, I make films that make x dollars. I will never make films that make 20x dollars. I won't be offered that money again, and that's fine.

[on Mary Reilly (1996)] That was terrible. I won't hear a word in its favour. It was painful to make and I try to put it out of my mind.

[1991, on working in Hollywood] I can see that people there are nervous and work ridiculously hard, that they are more welcoming to foreigners than we are, that you need to be both stoical and crusading to work there. The people I meet are by and large intelligent, grifters, people for whom I naturally have an affection, small con-artists, people like me.

[on Dangerous Liaisons (1988)] It's a sort of incredible film. When I watch it, I can't believe I directed it.