John Waters Quotes

I've made movies where people say it's their favourite, but they don't take it seriously because it just didn't seem to break through commercially.

Blues purists never cared for me. I don't worry about it. I think if it this way: When I made 'Three O' Clock Blues,' they were not there. The people out there made the tune. And blues purists just wrote about it. The people is who I'm trying to satisfy.

It was really weird to have a hit. Of course, we had a certain level of fame in the Pixies, but nothing I had ever done had been mall-kid friendly.

The chance to be both artistically appreciated and commercially appreciated... That's what you hope for.

'Singham' was one-and-a-half stars all over, and it was one of the biggest hits of my career. It gave me so much respect. People think if it's not critically acclaimed, you won't get respect. But that's not true. Even if you get one star, your film will do well if the audience wants to see it.

I don't think 'Cocktail' was a perfect critical success, but it touched a vein in our culture.

Then if your movie clicks with real audiences, you'll be sucked into some sort of Hollywood orbit. It's a devil of a place where the only religion that really counts is box office.

I didn't really go the starving-artist route. I kind of went and did massive, commercial things.

I want my films to get audiences. I am not interested in making them just for myself.

I don't think you're selling out by allowing the masses to love your art. The only curse is that, when you get so big, sometimes people forget to look at the music.

The initial response to 'Yennai Arindhaal' was that it didn't have all the quintessential commercial elements, though I consider it as my most commercial venture.

Let me be very frank. I make films keeping within the mainstream and my cinema is popular cinema. I love it this way.

I did two movies that were arthouse movies; they were critically successful but made no money at all... but after making those movies, I thought, 'I wouldn't watch my own movies when I was 16, and my buddies where I came from wouldn't watch my movies, because they were boring.'

It's quite strange in fashion, and it's probably the same with movies and acting - the big choice is between being radical, making a choice that will be more specific that will reach less people but will be very strong and very directional, and making a choice that will be more popular and catch the interest of a large group of people. Sometimes people are trying to push you in one direction or another.

Anytime something makes money, no matter how outré, it's instantly mainstream. A good example is rock 'n' roll. When rock 'n' roll was first played to a wide audience it was considered the devil's music.

Writers have always liked my stuff, pretty much. That's what I wanted - I think my goal wasn't to get rich and famous, necessarily, though I cared about that. I always thought, "Oh, this could be a hit," or "that will sell records." But the first thing I wanted was that people who knew a lot about music, or had taste-making qualities, they would like my stuff. Writers, people like that.

In acting class they tell you that you have to be real, connect with the people, connect with your partner. The same as politics, you have to connect to the people.

In a way, to have whatever people talk about as "crossover success," I think it means you start making bad music. I mean, when I'm flipping through the channels and see the VMAs or something, I don't really see any music there.

People would say, "Well yeah, if I wrote action films, if I wrote the trash that you write, I could make millions too. But I want to write my real movie about these Guatemalan immigrants, and how they hid under a truck for 300 miles." And that's fine. I'd love to make that film too, but to dismiss everything I did just because it's action seems wrong.

The challenge artists face today is whether to be an underground, unheard genius, or to dilute their art for the marketplace.

I think subjectivity plays into everything. It's unavoidable; you couldn't avoid it if you tried. I think, potentially, a lot more commercial movies, it seems to be that the people making the films are trying to elicit the same reaction. I think a lot of the most interesting work in art and in films are often kind of polarized opinions and affect people in very different ways, which may be less successful commercially, but they elicit a dialogue that's quite interesting.

I was always flattered, but I just want my movies to make money. I want to be commercial. I'm never the person who says, "I don't care if people don't see my movies." I always want people to see my movies.

The streets and the industry are two different things. You could be one super-hot artist in the streets, and you could walk into a corporate building, and people would be like, "Who are you?"

In acting class, you talked always about keeping it real and don't act... connect with the people and connect with the partner that you're acting with. The same is also true in politics.

I suppose Phil Collins offers something for everybody, and in hipdom that's not cool. But in the real world, there's no shame in that at all.