I'm not standing above the audience trying to manipulate them as a puppet master or a trickster; I'm inside the story I'm writing and making and thinking about things very seriously and feeling very deeply at times, and trying to translate that into a narrative.

Scott Derrickson

If you look at life with any honesty and intelligence, it's clear that human nature is dark, vile, selfish, and despondent. But I also see a force in human nature, namely grace, that sometimes works against our natural moral entropy.

Scott Derrickson

I'm married to a nurse, and she is really, really ardent that - in screenplays or movies that I've worked on, that all the medical aspects be properly presented. I think that filmmakers ought to be respectful of all fields and not just be lazy and put nonsense in movies because most people won't know the difference.

Scott Derrickson

Flannery O'Connor is my creative hero. I think she's the greatest American writer. Her book, 'Mystery and Manners,' is my creative bible.

Scott Derrickson

I think that the secular work environment in general is a place that's challenging for Christians to thrive in without getting caught up in materialism or in competitiveness or in things that are really not important.

Scott Derrickson

Priests and pastors are probably the most stereotyped characters in film and television, and the reason why, I think, is that most people don't know one. Most writers who work in Hollywood don't know any.

Scott Derrickson

You know, 'Top Gun' was the movie I saw in high school that made me want to be a filmmaker. I remember very specifically coming out of the Century 21 Theater in Colorado from seeing it, and my friend saying, 'What did you think of the movie?' And I said, 'I think I know what I want to do for a living.' That's a true story.

Scott Derrickson

I grew up reading comics - mostly Marvel - Doctor Strange was my favourite comic book and has remained my favourite as an adult. It's the only comic book movie property I've ever gone after. I felt uniquely suited to it.

Scott Derrickson

I don't fear pain or failure anymore because I'm too grateful for the pains and failures of my past - they have made me who I am, and most of the good things in my life are a direct result of them in some way.

Scott Derrickson

Some of the most intelligent people I've met in my life are priests and pastors; now, a lot of them aren't that, though. Some of the most sanctimonious and hypocritical people I've met are priests and pastors, also.

Scott Derrickson

I think that Christians who have an interest in filmmaking need to deepen their love for cinema. To be honest, that's what I think has been missing historically from the Christians who want to succeed in the Hollywood industry.

Scott Derrickson

When I went to Europe a few years ago, I felt very at home there, and I loved standing in Notre Dame and looking at all the gargoyles on the outside of that building and realizing that, as scary and frightening as they were, what I was looking at was something that was built to the glory of God.

Scott Derrickson

I have friends who are scientists, strict materialists, who don't think science and religion are compatible, but I just think most of us - unless you're a strict atheist materialist, which there aren't many of - most of us believe in something outside the material world. And if you do believe that, I don't know how you're not obsessed with it.

Scott Derrickson

Interestingly enough, there is a really different dynamic when you're directing something that somebody else has written compared to when you're directing something that you've written. And there's a good and a bad side to it. I think the bad side is that you never feel the same level of connection to the material - you just don't.

Scott Derrickson

I love the comics so much, and I grew up reading Marvel Comics. And Doctor Strange is my favorite comic book character - probably, I think honestly, the only comic book I would feel personally suited to work on.

Scott Derrickson

My faith sometimes burdens me with the responsibility to think very deeply and long and hard about the choices I make creatively. There are projects I turn down because the material is too much a violation of what I believe. But that's true of anybody.

Scott Derrickson

I think it's important for anyone who takes cinema seriously not to limit yourself to just optimistic or happy movies. I think that's a problem. You've got to be willing to let the art of cinema take you into some darker places if you're going to make full use of it.

Scott Derrickson

In my films, I either want the music to be very subtle and very buried or just put it right out in front and be super blunt with it.

Scott Derrickson

I think more than comedy, probably more than straight drama, I like horror. And horror I think I'm particularly good at. It's a mistake a lot of directors make, especially young directors. They always want to make the kind of movies that they most admire and aren't necessarily sensitive to what they have the best skill set for.

Scott Derrickson

My interest in the comic goes back a long time, because I grew up reading comics, mostly Marvel Comics, and I always loved 'Doctor Strange' uniquely. It was the presence of the fantastical, the presence of the supernatural that was in it. The idea of magic.

Scott Derrickson

My understanding of religion and science is that they're both arrogant schools of thought, and whether they acknowledge it or not they continually broadcast the idea that they have the world figured out. And what they don't know, they have a theory for which is probably correct. It feels like that shrinks the world, rather than expands it.

Scott Derrickson