In the end, with all of my films, I want to understand the continuity between these films and understand what they're trying to do.
Andrew Haigh
We can all understand that feeling of being alone in the world trying to find ways to not be alone.
If you're struggling, it's easy to feel powerless until you take control of it and assert what you want. I can understand that feeling. I can understand how it feels to be alone, to not want to get help from people and to not trust people who are actually wanting the best for you. I feel like that's true for a lot of people, actually.
Our past absolutely defines everything we do in the present. We can't help it. We're made by the events of our past, so there's no escaping it.
For me, all you want from your actor is for them to engage on a deeply emotional level with the material. If you feel like that happens, directing the actors is pretty much done at that point.
If you don't have money or you come from a background that doesn't have money, it's harder to achieve your ambition in life. It's not that you can't, but it becomes harder. Inequality is one of the worst things that can exist in our society, so I am interested in those kind of things.
I think there's always a conflict within me about being comfortable and secure and then being an individual and fighting for what I want to be on an individual basis.
If you don't open your eyes to other people's lives, you can't even begin to understand how the world works at all.
My influences are all over the place. Different films have spoken to me at different times in my life, and they've helped create my idea of the kind of films I want to make.
I've traveled a fair amount around the country and visited many states. It's amazing that Oregon is so different from Idaho; even though Portland isn't that far from Boise, it's a completely different city. Colorado is very different from Oregon. From a European perspective, I've always found that fascinating about America.
Our lives are largely made up of a series of mundane moments, but those little moments are often the finesse that shapes our entire existence; it's not necessarily the big, dramatic events, although they do, too, of course.
We pass people in the street and ignore them when they're clearly suffering. It makes you wish we could all feel when someone needs something.
I think all of my male characters, I suppose, in all of my films, they're not necessarily the traditional version of masculinity.
I don't believe in 'happy ever after' at all as a concept.
It fails everybody, pretty much, the American Dream, but people are driven by it. I don't think we're driven by the same sense of hope in Europe. We're driven by pessimism more.
I think it's always interesting to me how we keep secrets from the ones we love the most. You could be so close to someone, but still there was something you can't express, you can't tell them, because it's almost too painful and too hard for you to articulate yourself, because you don't fully understand it.
Of course everyone should have the right to get married. But I think people need to remember sometimes that we don't all need to be the same. There's thousands of different types of relationships that people can have, whether it's completely monogamous or it's not monogamous, or they're married, or they're single or whatever it is.
I haven't got muscles, and I don't live in West Hollywood.
I only want to tell films that I really feel passionate about telling.
I always quite like the idea of casting against type when I'm looking for and trying to understand who a character is.
I've certainly felt alone a lot of my life.
I always think that there's a weight of prejudice from the past that gay people perhaps carry around with them. Even if it doesn't exist so much around them, they still have a feeling of being excluded, and perceived prejudice is almost as unsettling as actual prejudice.
I don't want a performance to give me everything. You can look at Charlotte Rampling in '45 Years,' and you don't really know what she's thinking, but you know something interesting is happening.
In stories, those are the moments that hit me the most: when people really don't expect it, don't have it much in their lives, and suddenly, an act of kindness. It's like, 'Oh, God! Heartbreaking!'
Class is really interesting to me, maybe because I'm from England where there is a pretty hideous, deep-rooted obsession with class. I don't like the obsession with class, but it certainly interests me.
As a person, I am totally obsessed with the choices and decisions we make in our lives and how they dictate the course of our lives. Seemingly random choices that we make end up defining everything.
The reality of our lives is never like what you see in those romantic comedies or dramas. Things don't always end good. Things don't usually end good.
You can achieve one thing, but because of that, you have to adapt or lose something else. If you end up in a relationship, you sometimes have to lose the closeness of your friendships, for example, or you have to move away somewhere... For me, that creates the sense of melancholy which I think exists in most people's lives.
The longer you get in a relationship, the harder it becomes to confront problems.
Whoever my films are about, they'll hopefully still have my sensibility, whatever that is.
I have seen a lot of gay-themed films that didn't really express how I see being gay at this moment in the world. There never seemed to be a kind of authentic depiction of relationships.
Relationships are so important to all of us.
The kinds of films I like are the ones that take their time. If you reach an emotional pinnacle too early on in a film, that's kind of it. I think, as in real life, when you're getting to know someone, it starts off slowly.
I didn't enjoy growing up. I was lonely. That's probably my base level to feel like that.
'Call Me by Your Name' is essentially the universal nature of love.
Horses terrify me.
Coming from a different perspective on a society is really interesting. I love the Paul Thomas Anderson's 'Phantom Thread,' and that's a version of Britishness and Englishness made by an American.
People have very difficult lives. We can judge them for making the wrong decisions, but if you look harder and understand that these lives can be difficult, hopefully you're at least a bit more sympathetic to the decisions these people have to make.
I like going to a new environment with open eyes.
With supporting roles, you just want really good actors that can make it bigger than what's there.
I wanted to make films since I was young. My background had nothing to do with anything creative, so it seemed an impossible task.
I'm gay, and I know a lot of very liberal straight people, and, of course, they're absolutely fine, but they still won't necessarily come and see a film like 'Weekend.'
SXSW can feel very male, very straight, and very white, and though it's a great festival, when you have a film that's different, it's hard to find your place.
One of the reasons I wanted to make 'Lean on Pete' was that it wasn't about identity. For me, it's about something more essential underneath: the need to have somewhere to live, to be safe, and have someone to look after you.
I am fascinated by that person who is trying to live authentically, but they are on the outside of society, so how do they manage in the world around them?
I'm not very good at thinking, 'This is the thing I should do now to help my career.' I mean, I want to keep my career going, but that's not what draws me to a story.
The endings to me are the key moment in 'Weekend' and '45 Years.' I know how I want my gut to feel at the ending. Even if I can't articulate in words what that feeling is, I'm trying to find ways to get there.
I think people have this idea that I just lived in my place in England and never left. During 'Looking,' I was in America for four years. I've got a green card. I spend half my time there. It doesn't feel like an alien world at all.
A lot of gay-themed films are terrible. And mainstream audiences and the press aren't interested, understandably.
People don't think the struggles gay people have are worth talking about because everyone's decided that we're all equals now. Those struggles are much more subtle now. But the weight of being different does carry on.
