Quotes

Sex. What Fun. to the students of Atlantic Theater School

If you shout in the theater, people think you've gone a bit mad. But if you raise your voice on a film set, people just work a bit harder.

My process is slow and I enjoy it too much to rush. And I like to return to the theater between films. But after not doing any movies for a few years, perhaps I might do two in two years.

[on directing Jarhead (2005) without having a military background] This is new territory to me, but I hadn't spent two days in American suburbia when I directed American Beauty (1999). I only knew the script had an unusual and original voice and it was a challenge I wanted to take on. "Jarhead" is equal parts black humor, honesty, rage, lyricism, profanity and the mixture of machismo jarhead culture. With the exception of Three Kings (1999) this is a war that has been overlooked but which has a burning relevance to what is happening right now in the Middle East.

[receiving his Lifetime Achievement award from the Directors Guild of Great Britain] I feel very undeserving. I feel the award is a bank loan, which I'll take out and pay back by the end of 20 years, and by then I'll feel more deserving.

[on the different reactions of European and American critics to Jarhead (2005)] I feel they've understood in Europe. In America, it's like talking about a different movie. Fundamentally, "Jarhead" disobeys all the laws of American movies, and not just the political laws of American movies right now, which demand on some level to tell us which side they're on. In Europe, there's a sense this film comes from the tradition of absurdist war movies about the futility of conflict. It has more in common with Beckett [Samuel Beckett], Sartre [Jean-Paul Sartre] and Buñuel [Luis Buñuel] than it does with Oliver Stone. In America, they assumed I was trying to make an Oliver Stone movie and that I'd failed.

I don't want to be known for one thing. I don't want to have an adjective based around my name. 'Lynchian', I know what that is, I know what 'Kubrickian' is, and I know what 'Bergmanesque' means. But there isn't going to be, and I don't want there to be, a 'Mendesian'.

[on Stanley Kubrick] Of course, his films are all chilling. 2001: A Space Odyssey (1968) blew away the three act structure, but his other films are equally unique. We are only now catching up.

[on Natasha Richardson's tragic death] Natasha combined the best of Redgrave and Richardson: the enormous depth and emotional force of a great actor on the one hand, and the intelligence and objectivity of a great director on the other. She was one of a kind, a magnificent actress. She was also an amazing mother, a loyal friend, and the greatest and most generous host you could ever hope to meet. It defies belief that this gifted, brave, tenacious, wonderful woman is gone.

I am fascinated by America, no question about that. I will stop making films about it eventually, though, because I think there's a limited amount to say. But I am drawn to it. I don't think it's weird for an outsider to go and make movies that are quintessentially American. I think the 20th century shows that there is a tradition of people being drawn to America as the site of the great mythic landscape. You can tell big stories there that you might not be able to tell with such scale and grace elsewhere.

[on Away We Go (2009)] All my films are linked by similar concerns, if you look below the surface. They're all about one or more people who are lost and trying to find a way through. It's no different with this one, it just happens that they do find a way through.

Get in touch with your inner 12 year old. He or she was an interesting kid.

On the day, be prepared - but also be prepared to make shit up.

Making an action sequence is only interesting when you're in the cutting room. Up until then, it is literally the most tedious thing you will ever do.

You can only ever point the camera at one thing at a time.

You are playing roulette with someone else's money. If you are going to bet it all on black, you need to be able to explain why.

You need to learn to tune out the white noise. You can not please everyone.

Tarantino, Spielberg, Nolan, Scorsese, Greengrass, J.J. and Paul Thomas Anderson all still shoot on film. There is a reason.

You're trying to surf the big wave, so be prepared to be wiped out - but when you catch it, it feels like nothing else.

When you're choosing for collaborators, do not listen to the people who tell you, "Yes, but I've never done a big movie." If they are any good, they will learn - just like I did.

When you get excited, don't be afraid to leap out of your chair and sing the James Bond theme.

[describing 1917 (2019)] A movie with no cuts, rather than a one-shot movie.