Viggo Mortensen Quotes

In my opinion, the vast majority of scripts written - as well as most movies that are released - are not very original, well-written, or interesting. It has always been that way, and I think it always will be.

In my opinion, there's nothing new in the theatre, ever. Theatre-makers are thieves, in the honourable tradition of charlatans. They fake it very, very well indeed for the entertainment of everybody else.

Everyone is trying to do something that hasn't been done and that's a really good thing. You can only do so much with a story and some scripts don't give you the opportunities and other scripts do give you the opportunities to do things that haven't been done before.

I've always had an idealistic streak about storytelling in that I believe we owe more to audiences than repeatedly bludgeoning them over the head while stealing their lunch money. We owe them inspiration. That's why I'm more interested now in creating new heroes than hooking up jumper cables to old ones.

I'm interested in films, in directing.

Music is always there, but if you're asking me my first love, it's film.

I love cinema and creating new things, but essentially, I am creating all this because I want people to see it.

Screenplays are the currency of Hollywood.

I'm always cribbing from real life. I'm not a very creative filmmaker.

There are no rules in filmmaking. Only sins. And the cardinal sin is dullness.

Cinema is not just a side show - it is something which is much deeper than that. It is a form of art which needs to be respected.

This is not a movie about smelling the urine! It's another kind of movie." Volker Schlöndorff got Billy Wilder to agree to these conversations - you can buy it - because Volker spoke German at times. And he said to Billy Wilder: "What is in your mind?" And he said: "If you're going to try to tell the truth to the audience, you'd better be funny or they'll kill you." And I haven't forgotten that.

Don't try to follow in my footsteps. Make your own footsteps! No one else can tell the stories that are inside of you except for you.

When I go to the movies, one of my strongest desires is to be shown something new. I want to go to new places, meet new people, have new experiences. When I see Hollywood formulas mindlessly repeated, a little something dies inside of me: I have lost two hours to boors who insist on telling me stories I have heard before.

I've documented a lot of things myself as a filmmaker. If you want a rockumentary, that's in there.

Everything had been done long before I started making movies. I mean, there's nothing that Godard hasn't already done. You can't do a single thing that Godard hasn't already thought of. And so you struggle to do something that is not predictable.

There's no point in it unless it's a story that you really want to tell. It's a nebulous job. Unless you're doing it well, you're not doing anything. And there are a few of those. It's perfectly possible to be a passenger on a film set because if somebody else has written it, you can make nothing of that role and that's exactly what bad directors do.

I love stories and I don't like to repeat myself. And I look for new stuff, and as they say it gets harder.

It's not enough just to be real; you have to try to make it interesting or entertaining.

Stories have tangents; they open up and become different things. You can still have a structure, but you should leave room to dream. If you stay true to your ideas, filmmaking becomes an inside-out, honest kind of process. And if it's an honest thing for you, there's a chance that people will feel that, even if it's abstract.

That's the imagination that happens in the theater. That imagination is translated in film by the film magicians and all the technology.

I think now I'm just excited to continue directing and find stories that inspire me and bring those to the screen.

A movie is something you see, cinema is something that’s made.

Generally, the bigger the budget, the less interesting the characters become.

I'm going in a really weird I-don't-know-where direction, but I prefer anything [different] from how standardized filmmaking has become.