I find it ironic that happy endings now are called fairytale endings because there's nothing happy about most fairytale endings.
Joe Wright
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.
Fairy tales to me are never happy, sweet stories. They're moral stories about overcoming the dark side and the bad.
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.
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.
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 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.
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 fell in love with film and its potential. The idea of putting one image next to another image and creating meaning blew my mind.
Every time I make a film, I feel it gives me the chance to learn something new.
I find men odd. I don't really understand men. I kind of feel like I understand women better than I do men, really.
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.
I see the job of directing as being one of creating the right atmosphere, creating an environment where people can realize their full potential.
I'd like to make the film of Sam Selvon's book 'The Lonely Londoners.'
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 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.
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.
My father was 65 when I was born so we didn't have much time together.
Film has become a very passive experience, but with theatre, there is a contract made with the audience, where they participate. That's why my parents' puppet theatre was such a special place - people used their imaginations. It's a muscle that needs using.
'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.
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.
I've made some films that were very much image based: 'Anna Karenina' and 'Pan,' for instance.
The more you practise happiness, the better you get at it. So if you spend lots of time practising being depressed, you're going to get really good at being depressed. And if you spend lots of time practising being happy, you're going to get better at being happy.
A lot of directors don't really like actors.
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.
An artist needs to live to create, and to live means to suffer.
I don't make a division between an art film and commercial art.
That luxury, ossified Los Angeles world isn't good for the soul.
I like the idea of doing something outside my comfort zone.
'Hanna' was nice. It was Saoirse Ronan's idea. Usually, the director casts the actor, but in this case, the actor cast the director.
Most actors hate the feeling of being handled.
I find man's inhumanity to man extraordinary,,, I can't get my head around it.
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've been lucky over the past few years. Things have just happened for me.
I feel more in touch with the world when I'm filming.
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.
'Blue Velvet' changed my life forever. It was like I'd always read Chaucer and suddenly discovered Charles Bukowski. It made me understand that there is poetry of sublime ecstasy and dark terror, and it spoke to a side of me that hadn't been reached before.
I had a breakdown after making 'Atonement.'
American actors are very different to British actors who have generally studied and been brought up culturally with the sense that the writer is the star and that their job is to serve the writing. Whereas Hollywood actors are brought up to believe that the actor is the star, and everything and everybody is in the service of them.
I'm not good when idle.
Studios are often very nervous of things they don't recognize, by which I mean things that haven't been done before, and therefore, they take a really original idea, and they recognize the originality, and then they try and make it look like something they recognize. So they try to turn it into something far more procedural.
I'm interested in people with very exceptional world views or realities.
