Love is not selfish. Love is something else.
Morten Tyldum
What you want, as a filmmaker, is to be obsessed with and fall in love with the material.
You find a story - or more importantly, you find some characters - that you want to be around as a filmmaker. The style and how we're going to shoot it and how we're going to design it and how it's all going to feel and look depends on that story. They tell me how I should shoot it.
As a director, one of my biggest jobs is trying to see what actually works for the actor.
Sometimes I think I don't do anything but make, watch, and talk about films.
Thank God sci-fi has moved away from spaceships fighting aliens! Now it's a place where you can explore contemporary issues or emotional feelings. You can put it all in a different setting.
You first do the assembly cut, which is basically the cut that mirrors the script. You've got to start with that.
I didn't know anybody who was a filmmaker - there was no film industry where I grew up. I never knew what a director really did until I was in high school and I started reading up about it. I've always loved films, and I always felt like a storyteller.
I'm very tired, but this is what every filmmaker dreams about: that their $15 million, under-the-radar film is now being seen by so many people.
You never have any idea where your movie's going to go when you're shooting - you're in this little bubble. Everything you care about is getting the next step right: getting the script right, finding the right actors, shooting it. Then you spend half a year in a dark room editing your film, and you don't talk to anybody.
In every Kubrick movie, there is so much great thought put into the surroundings. It's almost like the sets are huge characters in the movie at all times.
'The Imitation Game' is a very British film.
Trying to explain Turing's work in encryption and decryption? It's complicated.
It's great to try another format and be part of telling a story over ten episodes.
Bob Dylan is someone that - I don't care how long into the future it is - somebody will still play Bob Dylan. He will always survive.
When you watch a Hitchcock movie, you feel like learning back because there's a master in control.
The most serious problem doing biography is the matter of time because you have to shape events into a narrative of two hours; you have to create a dramatic arc. That can be a challenge.
I love using drama and humour.
To me, Alan Turing was a mystery - it was sort of like something I needed to unravel. And he was also obsessed with puzzles. So I wanted to make the movie like a mystery, like a puzzle that you're piecing together.
This is a man who was 23 years old when he theorized the idea of creating a programmable machine, and in that way, Turing foresaw computers and artificial intelligence. These were revolutionary ideas at that time.
As a filmmaker, I don't want to limit myself to one kind of movie. After 'Headhunters,' I went to Hollywood and read a lot of scripts: lots of action thrillers and heist movies, and superhero films.
If you want the human psyche, how we deal with humans in these situations, WWII is a very tangled place to go.
I don't know if it's a sadistic side or whatever, but you take characters and put them in really awful situations and make them go through that. And it's very satisfying as a director to explore that, to tell those stories and to explore those themes, because it is so human.
Turing was very strong and driven and, at the same, so awkward and fragile.
I always wanted to do a sci-fi movie, but most sci-fi scripts are either about saving the planet or fighting aliens.
When you go to the movies, you expect the movie to create a world that you can immerse yourself in, that you can step into. Sci-fi is a beautiful way of doing that.
For film fans to support 'The Imitation Game' means so much to me, the entire cast and film-making team.
Sci-fi is about 'what if this happened,' and 'what would you do.' You can play around with social dilemmas, or look at society or, in my case, relationships, in a very different way.
I love history, and I thought I knew history well, but I was shocked by how little I knew about it.
Everything you care about is getting the next step right: getting the script right, finding the right actors, shooting it. Then you spend half a year in a dark room editing your film, and you don't talk to anybody.
As a filmmaker, I don't want to limit myself to one kind of movie.
I hope I can be a filmmaker where every movie will be different, and not make one type of movie. I'm always looking for a character that interests me.
To do a movie about someone who actually lived gives you two responsibilities. You have to try to be accurate to the facts of what he did and what he was like as a character. Then, at the same time, you have a responsibility to make a movie that entertains and can get an audience.
To me, it's mind-boggling to think that homosexuality was forbidden up until 1967.
You never know where your next movie is going to come from. You just have to fall in love with something because it's going to be taking up every moment of spare time in your life for about two years. You're going to be dreaming about it and thinking about it and becoming obsessed with it.
I'm such a romantic at heart.
I'm a sci-fi fan, but a lot of the sci-fi you're getting is the same. It's very stereotypical.
I think that the test for taking on a project is to try and list all the reasons not to do it. When you find yourself running out of reasons, and you still have to do it, it's the right thing to do.
I'm from Norway, but I always felt like I'd grown up with British culture. We had everything from the BBC on our TV, so British drama seems very close to home.
'Headhunters' was a breakthrough film for me, internationally, and I got offered a lot of scripts from Hollywood - a lot of heightened hero movies.
I came to Hollywood and felt myself an outsider, and I was sent all these action thrillers and superhero scripts.
Our film society back home is so different from here. Making a movie is universal. Directing a movie is universal; it's a universal language. It's just figuring things out and understanding the codes and how the system of Hollywood compares to that of Norway. We don't even have agents. There's no studio system, no managers.
You never have any idea where your movie's going to go when you're shooting - you're in this little bubble.
I always felt Harrison Ford looked like he's about to shoot himself when he's carrying his own gun. He always looked afraid; he's not just this tough guy, you know?
Turing was uncompromisingly honest. As soon as he didn't think you were interesting or smart, he'd just turn around and walk away, even if you were in the middle of a sentence.
You do not move forward by following convention. You celebrate those who are different, who are not burdened by 'normality.'
Turing was fearless. He's extremely direct, which can be seen as socially awkward, and that becomes both his big obstacle but also, in many ways, his strength.
I like movies where you can't just put them all in one box.
We had everything from the BBC on our TV, so British drama seems very close to home.
I'm from Norway, but I always felt like I'd grown up with British culture.
