Emma Thompson Quotes

At least I want to be making films that are somehow born out of me that are stories I want to tell. The challenge is figuring out how to do it where you can make them personal, yet still deliver to an audience a film experience that is satisfying and emotional, and that's what I'm trying to do.

I want to make movies that I want to see, and what I miss and I'm not seeing.

Film is the only language I speak, and I have been lucky to be involved in some great stories. You don't want to preach to people, but you want them to think about why things are the way they are, the history that is there as well as the possibilities.

My movie is born first in my head, dies on paper; is resuscitated by the living persons and real objects I use, which are killed on film but, placed in a certain order and projected on to a screen, come to life again like flowers in water.

A novelist writes a novel, and people read it. But reading is a solitary act. While it may elicit a varied and personal response, the communal nature of the audience is like having five hundred people read your novel and respond to it at the same time. I find that thrilling.

Some films really do take years to get going, but I'd say that most of the films I want to do are slightly smaller projects. Some could be sketches. They're not all oil paintings.

I have a list of things I want to say through my films and I have started doing that.

The - the sort of thing that I want to do is to strike a resonant chord of universality in other people, which is best done by fiction.

As a director, you try to find what is creative.

A lot of movies are about life, mine are like a slice of cake.

Everybody is always trying to make the best movie they can. It's a process.

I wouldn't take a directing job if I didn't think it was enriching life.

Since I was a child, I've liked telling stories. Maybe because my father's a director, I grew up loving stories. I'm not good at spinning them at a dinner table because I do go on a bit, but I love writing them, and directing is just a way of editing the story.

I think the last thing you want to do as a writer, as a storyteller, is to create indifference. I don't necessarily go out of my way to provoke, but I would much rather have a song that triggers a whole myriad of reactions than a song that inspires a shrug of the shoulder.

You know, I feel like my job is to write a book. Then filmmakers come and they make a movie. And they're two really different art forms.

The reward is that you can actually create a world separate from reality with a story, actors, music, and camera design. When it works it can entertain, move people and teach us all.

I found it very difficult to explain to someone why you did a film. It's not like having a conversation.

Writing and directing your own film, for me, has been the best experience of my life.

You have to make films you feel strongly about. And then hope you can find the audience.

In looking at Hollywood and its structure, the director controls the medium, and I want to be in control of certain things. I want to be able to get my own ideas and my own feelings out there, and the only way to do that is to be behind the camera.

The prime goal of an author is the same as a musician, which is to emotionally connect with the reader in some way or another.

To make personal movies that you are the author of, is quite a difficult thing. It takes a lot of stamina.

I don't understand the whole testing-numbers thing. It is not how I want to make movies.

See, a painting is much cheaper than making a film. And photography is, you know, way cheap. So if I get an idea for a film, there are many ways to get it together and go realise that film. There's really nothing to be afraid of.

I think films are bigger than structure.