Roman Polanski Quotes

When I go to a film, you're taking it easy and you let things wash over you. That's what cinema's all about. You get involved in a world that's being created in front of you.

I like it when I go into a cinema and I'm not aware that I'm there; I'm totally involved in the film for two hours.

When you go to the theater, you are slipping out of your life into someone else's imaginary world.

When I watch a movie myself, I want to forget that I'm watching a movie, and I want to be inside the movie. That's the kind of experience I want my audience to have.

There's such an immediate intimacy with film that you just don't get in theater.

What people really want in the theater is fantasy involvement and not reality involvement.

In the theater, it's a visceral and physical response because you move around so much. You have to do something physical to pull you in. On TV or in movies, everything is so small. You can just lock into a character and ease yourself into that way.

I like when you watch a film and you feel like you're a part of somebody's life for an hour and a half.

When you go to the theater, if you're really involved in the play, you don't think about it - you're in it.

When I watch a film I get swept away. I don't really watch the camera.

Why movies are so powerful is because you are right in there and you stay in there until they want you to come out, and then you've really gone somewhere.

The energy of live theater is indescribable. You are just in the moment for an hour and a half.

That's what film can do in a way that TV and other long-form storytelling can't. It gives you this very immersive moment.

I think the biggest compliment an actor can have is if people forget who they're watching and get lost in the character.

At the cinema, we do not think - we are thought.

Theater's wonderful because it's visceral, and it's happening in front of you, but you never get that close. So the close-up is a great privilege of film.

As a reader and as a viewer, usually when I watch a movie, I'm caught up enough in the movie that I'm not breaking it down to the details anyway.

I want the audience to be transported to a different world once they enter the auditorium.

Cinema has to move people.

I just want my music to involve an audience in what's taking place onscreen.

I know when I watch a film at this point, if I completely lose myself in the characters and the story and the world of the film I know that it's at least in my opinion, that was great. Otherwise I'm thinking: "Oh I know they were just doing A, B and C, right before they walked into the scene, then the camera was there, then they probably took the shot from this reverse close-up and moved it into this." When all of that drops away then I'm like: "Okay this was phenomenal, this was fantastic." I mean, any film or TV performance in general is probably good.

Watching a film should feel like you just tore a hole out of the air and the void caught fire.

I went to see 'The Piano' with Holly Hunter when I was in a Paula Vogel play, and I was just gone. I couldn't focus at all. It took that creative part of my brain with it so absolutely.

One of the big moments of my life was watching 'Star Wars' on its opening weekend in Hollywood. I was watching all these people enjoy this film, and I thought: animation can do this.

There's nothing like the buzz of live theater. You put it out there and receive an instant reaction: laughing, crying, yelling, applauding.