Asghar Farhadi Quotes

I want films to haunt an audience, to give them something to remember and be able to talk about.

I never want to make the kind of film whose impact ends when the audience leaves the cinema.

My favorite thing to hear from people is, 'I left the theater and couldn't stop thinking about it.' You want your work to have an impact after they leave the theater. It's the equivalent of leaving a musical humming a show tune.

'Apocalypse Now' poses questions without any attempt to provide definitive answers, and the film's profound ambiguities are integral to its enduring magic.

My job as a performer is to make sure that whatever happens in a performance lives in somebody else, that it's memorable... If you forget tomorrow what you heard yesterday, there's really not much point in you having been there - or me, for that matter.

I think if you make a good movie, people walk away arguing.

One hopes that with a book or movie, the reader or the audience will emerge from it thinking. That's the most you can hope for: that you've raised questions that will be there for the audience to think about later.

I'm trying to get under people's skin in a way. I don't like films that go in one ear and out the other.

I want something that's going to linger and stay with me and give me something to think about and chew over. That's the real objective here; it creates something that doesn't feel disposable.

I don't want them to read what I'm writing and say, 'I think that's right,' and agree with me. I want them to read something and then walk away and be haunted by it.

For me, the greatest thing a movie can do is rivet you while you're watching but also give you something to chew on for days and weeks after you've seen it.

'The Survivalist' really makes you think. It stays with you.

I hope I make films where you walk away . . . with work to do, arguments to have, things to worry about, things to care about. In that sense, I would regard what I do as political.

The thing I'm always trying to do when I write is hit that sweet spot where the book both keeps you up late at night, and yet a week after you've finished, it still pops back into your head.

In the end, you don't want music to be noticed as much as digested and integrated into the storytelling. And make audiences sit forward in their seats and enjoy the movie.

My films are like drinking a good beer, but pleasure doesn't mean that it cannot change someone's point of view.

That's my job as an actor - to go on and try to do the work so subtle and so fine and specific that the memories will linger for a long time.

A lot of actors give a performance that many people connect with and they end up talking about it a lot of their life.

Whatever films I make, the mandate is that it should touch the audiences and engage them from the first scene.

The one amazing thing about 'Jack' is that I did it in 2001, you know, and it still survived. There's something about it that's connected with people.

I'm just focused on getting to the end of each show and feeling like we've done a good job when we walk off stage. And a perfect show isn't necessarily about making the audience feel good. I know I've done my job well if I've made people feel... interesting. I like to leave them a little stunned.

I don't think a film that has no effect on people or society is a good film.

'Still Writing Songs About You' - that one hits me every time. For some reason, I really feel that song every time we play it. I just love the sound of it, and I feel like everybody probably has that person that they never fully forget or never can get past.

I think great movies do promote conversation, great movies are honest, and great movies are sometimes polarizing.

To me, something that's beautiful in terms of a book is something that lives inside the reader both as a discrete and complete thing, but also something that seeps out into their life and thoughts.