Alan Bennett Quotes

I think most people can identify with the hierarchy of the workplace.

All organizations start with a structure that looks like a dynamic solar system. They can be very fast, agile. They attract people who play around with crazy ideas.

I learned what a lot of women have to do is make the guys in the room think it was their idea, and then you back them up.

I don't like the sort of hierarchical, totalitarian type of room a lot of directors can find themselves in.

I think people take their behavioural tips from everyone else. So, if the director is calm and the lead actors are calm, no one wants to be the sore thumb. And I've remained friendly with everyone.

All important persons have about them someone in a subordinate position who has their ear. These dependents are very susceptible to slights, and, when they are not treated as they think they should be, will by well-directed shafts, constantly repeated, poison the minds of their patrons against those who have provoked their animosity. It is well to keep in with them.

This is how it is today: The teachers are afraid of the principals. The principals are afraid of the superintendents. The superintendents are afraid of the board of education. The board is afraid of the parents. The parents are afraid of the children. The children are afraid of nothing!

In every work environment, there will be politics. If you really want to rise to the top, you need to figure out what those politics in your workplace are. Then, you hook it in. You decide what conforms and what does not conform to your personal code.

Some in management positions operate as if they are in a tree of monkeys. They make sure that everyone at the top of the tree looking down sees only smiles. But all too often, those at the bottom looking up see only asses.

It's quite liberating to have a director stand beside the camera and say: "Do this now, and do that now..." It's also a bit sordid but it liberates an actor, I think.

Power always works from the corner office.

I think one should be antagonistic to one's underlings. It keeps them on their toes. ~Soi Fon

Somewhere between the janitor and the CEO, reasons stop mattering.

I'd love to direct, and I think I'd be a great director, but... I've been approved by the studio to direct, which I think is a cool jump of faith for them. Or proof that they're really stupid. But I don't think so.

I think we have systematically and critically harmed ourselves and many young people by advising them not to try things.

As actors you're always afraid to go too far but Lasse Hallstrom wants you to go too far. He wants you to do it wrong, to be over-the-top, and that's so freeing to be able to think 'Now I can try and be bad'. There's no pressure on you and you don't feel you can make a mistake.

When I'm in office I always keep Members of Parliament talking. If they stopped they might start thinking.

One of the hardest lessons in young Sam's life had been finding out that the people in charge weren't in charge. It had been finding out that governments were not, on the whole, staffed by people who had a grip, and that plans were what people made instead of thinking.

I think one of my favorite things about making low budget movies is that when you get into expensive moviemaking territory, it's almost impossible not to reverse engineer the movies. It's irresponsible not to think about the result and the financial result. But when you make low budget movies, you can put that out of your head.

I think people are willing to take more of a risk on an indie film, about character, etc...but at the same time, when I work on projects that are substantially bigger, in a way they do feel small. Even though the catering is way better and we actually have someone shooting with real film.... The budgets are bigger but the story still feels small, like an indie film.

The normal routine is always the same thing whether it's on a new movie or a new job - there's always a process of getting to know one another. I think part of what makes movies special is that it is a relatively intimate environment and it's pretty short-lived - you get to know one another very quickly.

The vast majority of people in any organization, even quite high up, have got no idea who the real masters are.

I always thought the editor should cut the film and so I'll come in and look at the movie. Just because that's the only way I can really see the ideas of the editor, it's really working together. Yes it's a hierarchy, yes I'm the boss, but I like to see and to think about the idea, and it's about us asking, 'do we have to say that?' and, 'how do we make it there?' So it's advising the editor, it's very give and take, it's very free, but in the end, it's wonderful once you get through the first couple of cuts.

I feel like you have to earn something with an audience. If I just did it now, I think producers on any superhero movie, I think they wouldn't trust me to do it the way I'd want to do it, because I'd want to do something basically really strange. I think you have to earn that freedom to do stuff like that. So I think, if I keep kind of chipping away, trying to do good movies and interesting, strange movies then people will eventually trust you to do that on a bigger scale.

You have to take away the idea that something you do is right or wrong. I don't think there's a right or a wrong; I think there's an "it works" or "it doesn't work" for the whole. And that's why you need a director you trust, so you can just keep throwing out suggestions.