Joe Wright Quotes

I've always been against the idea of dividing films between festival titles and popular movies. I think you can make films that are both.

I personally don't distinguish between artistic and commercial films.

I mean my point as an artist is I'm on my own little weird journey across the sky here and whether or not anybody's listening, or listening to the degree I would like them to, at the end of the day has to be an inconsequential thing because I can't chase this culture.

I know some people might think it odd - unworthy even - for me to have written a cookbook, but I make no apologies. The U.S. poet laureate Billy Collins thought I had demeaned myself by writing poetry for Hallmark Cards, but I am the people's poet so I write for the people.

You have kids studying master class visual arts who are pushed to make films that will be successful economically; that's what they focus on. So they work for corporate interest instead of artistic expression.

I am not ready to fit into the mould of commercial cinema.

I'm interested in what would normally be considered the worst aspects of commercial art. I think it's the tension between what seems to be so rigid and cliched and the fact that art really can't be this way.

Real art has been... what's the word? Kidnapped? No, that's not it. But, OK, kidnapped by business.

Painting was a problem - you produce a thing, and then you sell it and get money, and that was quickly considered totally uncool.

I sort of straddle the line... between personal movies and mainstream Hollywood.

A lot of my stuff just wasn't saleable. I still don't do private or corporate commissions. It becomes like interior design. I don't enjoy it. The process makes me feel physically sick.

Bollywood is such a space where you get to work with so many genres. Genres being pushed isn't the way of looking at it. In fact, I think Indie needs to be given a lot more focus or recognition.

Critics are more committed to the rules of art than artists are.

We have access to more resources in general, and they are not going to force a situation on us, whether its the producer, or the cover, or what songs we have to play. And it's a small enough company that it seems like the people there care about music and not just about business.

You do a movie if it's good and if you want to do it. It doesn't matter if it's small or big or expensive or cheap. If you want to say the words, you're gonna say them. You can't strategize.

It would nice to live in a world where art can just be art!

Art can be very political but that can't be the purpose of art, it can't be the driving force. It isn't with any of the books that I love, anyway.

I don't have to worry about what people are thinking and what's going on in the industry. I don't want that stuff to influence what I'm doing. Because I think it stifles you creatively. I don't want to have to care too much about that. All I care about is what the fans think. It's really all I care about, honestly.

A lot of people thought I got famous as a studio artist, then decided to cash in on it. But it actually was just a matter of survival for many years, and I felt it was really important for me to be able to say whatever I wanted with my street art and fine art.

There is no purity with regards to the marketplace and art, I believe.

As long as cameras are around no artist will be free of bewilderment.

Art is vice. You don't marry it legitimately, you rape it.

Don't be dismayed by the opinions of editors, or critics. They are only the traffic cops of the arts.

What a terrible world it would be if we only did films that were poster boards for political causes.

Artists are not your art monkeys. They are your collaborators. They should be given all due consideration to follow their journey.