Paul Greengrass Quotes

Audiences can tell when you're being fake and they will eat you alive. But if you're doing something authentic they will connect to it and that can lead to commercial success.

Personally, I like films that make me a little bit uncomfortable because I think you're uncomfortable when something is real.

I look at scripts really for whether they can be moving or penetrate some kind of truth. You are constantly chasing that feeling as an actor when every part of a production comes together.

I think there is something so compelling about the truth that whether you're a lawyer or judge or an actor, when you get at that truth, it connects with people on a particular level that I think makes your art more viable.

You see, I am trying in all my stories to get the feeling of the actual life across - not to just depict life - or criticize it - but to actually make it alive. So that when you have read something by me, you actually experience the thing. You can't do this without putting in the bad and the ugly as well as what is beautiful.

All fiction has to have a certain amount of truth in it to be powerful.

Emotional honesty transcends reality; it's what allows disbelief to be suspended and yet what makes a story stay true.

I've always wanted to do pieces that have an integral sense of realism and aren't just there for titillation.

I don't like to objectify the people I play. I always try to go for the truth in any part.

The audience will show up if you have authenticity. Like 'Moonlight,' there was stuff in there that is so specific to that community where the filmmakers grew up. Even if I don't understand everything they're talking about, I will love it if I feel that it's real.

My whole goal is to be honest and sincere with the music I'm making.

Emotional sounds don't lie.

I want to tell stories that are true and that resonate and move people, that highlight both the tremendous beauty and ugliness available in the human experience.

I've always thought that comedy was just another dramatic expression. I try to measure the amount of truth in a work rather than just looking at the generic distinction between comedy and drama. There's a lot of bullshit drama that leaves you totally cold. And there's a lot of wasted comedy time too. But when you get something honest, it doesn't matter what label you give it.

Truth is not only stranger than fiction, it is more telling. To know that a thing actually happened gives it a poignancy, touches a chord, which a piece of acknowledged fiction misses. It is to touch this chord that some authors have done everything they could to give you the impression that they are telling the plain truth.

I just keep it real, and I have written songs from my heart and performed them how they should be performed.

The audience will understand something that's very authentic, and that's all that I want to create.

The audience will find the artist who matches their interests. If you're not being true to yourself, your audience can't find you, because there's a wall up between who you are and who they're seeing.

Whenever you think you're writing what other people want to hear from you, and that it'll be commercial, you're doomed to disaster. Writing has to be as truthful and specific as we can make it. The minute we think that we're reaching more people and pleasing them, we get general. And audiences sense that and turn away, shun us.

Even though I'm an actor, even though I know a little bit about film, I very much view things as an audience member. For me, whether it's TV, film, theater, whatever, it's a big movie, a small movie, whatever it is, I look for the truth in it. I look for the honesty. I just look for if it feels honest and real to me.

It's good to be employable, but I hope to show the truth. The paintings seem true because nobody wants me to do them.

I'm not the kind of writer that can wake up and say, "Okay, I'm gonna write a song today," and have that song be the kind I would want to record. The songs of mine that I end up liking are songs that come from real experience. They're like chapter titles in my life.

No picture can be good which deceives by its imitation, for the very reason that nothing can be beautiful which is not true.

I think everything needs to be played real, for reality's sake, for truth. And that is the drama and the comedy. When you do that, it's funnier. And when you do that, you really do hit the emotional beats. I do it the same way as I do a drama. I just play it for truth, and then maybe have a little bit of fun with it sometimes.

If a book comes from the heart, it will contrive to reach other hearts; all art and author-craft are of small amount to that.