John Carney Quotes

That's what I think musicals will come to. No backstage stories, nothing of that sort.

I'm dying to do a tiny indie and play something totally naturalistic without any sort of constraints on me. Something where I can shock everyone.

I think that there's a lot more freedom in the low budget, the independent films where, unfortunately, you don't have the money, necessarily, to get the orchestras in there to play a lot of stuff. But, you have a lot more freedom, very often.

For me, the movies I like are all independent. And getting an independent feature made, it's like you get down to the selling organs part, and it just loses some of its luster.

To me, the musical is best when it's a musical comedy. So if you have a very, very funny show, and very good, funny songs, that's what the musical does best.

My heart is in independent film-making. For me, it's where the fun, gritty storytelling is being told.

I went to see 'Phantom of the Opera' with my grandma and my mom when I was very little. The stage, the voice, the music... Composer Andrew Lloyd Webber has been a massive inspiration to me for some time - the storytelling, that deliciously somber undertone in his music.

I like to give my actors a lot of room.

There are wonderful composers and librettists out there. It's the lack of creative producers that is troubling.

Broadway musicals, where you sing the whole time, I really don't like; I like alternating dialogue and music.

A musical, in its true form, is where emotions reach a height where true spoken word cannot be enough, and you must sing. That's all it is. It's not posh; it's not out of your reach. It's the most visceral way to tell a story.

Filmmaking is not a balancing act, although some directors think it is. I don't believe in it. I like ups and downs. They're the best way to translate my feelings to the screen.

I think I wanted to do something that retained the improvised chaos of 'Mamma Mia' the theatre show which set it apart from all the slick packaged productions.

Whether a film is breaking into song and dance or if it's something like 'Whiplash,' I find it incredibly rewarding, and I'm drawn to those stories with a musical component.

A musical by its very nature doesn't allow for a lot of nuances.

I never planned my movies. I never selected subjects to win the National Award. I did films that made the masses happy.

The challenge in any musical is unifying all the moving parts of it, in particular a movie musical because now you're adding the camera and you're adding the idea of adaptation. So the challenge is to stay as true as you can to the material that you love and yet not be afraid to step outside of it and introduce elements into it that make it exist in a satisfying, exciting way cinematically.

I want to have the illegitimate child of independent film making and the budget to make it. That's my aspiration.

I never think about franchises, to be honest. I always just do the film.

Honestly, musicals? I just can't. What if this was real life and I was just walking down the street on Rodeo Drive and all of a sudden I just burst into song about how much I love shoes?

If you want to do a film, steal a camera, steal raw stock, sneak into a lab and do it!

I try to approach making movies in a way that it's about the making of them and not the result of them, if that makes sense.

Yeah, it was always a low-budget passion project. It's my directing debut. I've always wanted to make an improv movie because I have so much experience in it, but it's not a big studio movie. It was an experiment that turned out better than I thought.

You should just write the movie based on people you actually know and then just see who wants to play it. Cast the net.

I am not interested in rules or conventions. Photography is not a sport.