Gavin O'Connor Quotes

My first film festival and my first film that I've ever been in, 'Martha Marcy May Marlene,' that was at Sundance.

I'll never get another first premiere again, especially at Sundance. I've just been trying to fully engage myself in everything that's going on, and I hope to see other movies here while I'm here! I really want to!

Doing anything on a movie at Sundance is great.

I never really grasped how big it was when I initially got 'Alexander'; I thought, 'Ooh, this is exciting,' but after I got home, I looked back and thought, 'That was an incredible experience.' I got to work with some massive names in Hollywood, and I learnt so much, and then it really kind of struck me how life-changing it was.

Well, this is the second time I've done New Directors.

After I left college, I went to work at the Royal Opera House in London, which became a real catalyst for me because it made me realize that I was interested in cinema and in the way life is thrust at you. So I started making films.

I saw 'Birth' at the Sundance Film Festival with a thousand other strangers, and I couldn't believe that was me in the film. I didn't recognize myself.

I met Jill Soloway at Sundance a couple years ago. I was there for 'Crystal Fairy', and she was there for 'Afternoon Delight'. She reached out and wanted to get together.

I just got an opportunity to do that with a film called 'Lootcase', and it's an opportunity that I am really grateful for.

I worked with young directors all my life, only young directors.

It's been about 15 years, and I've never really worked seriously in CGI and I thought that here was an opportunity to do the kinds of things that I was not able to do on Ghostbusters.

My first movie, 'Heathers,' had played at the festival, so I had a little bit of a Sundance connection, but I didn't really know about the Labs.

Making movies was a real weird kind of adult experience. In a way it was like MIT, in that it was a great education. The big lesson is, people are people. They're smart, funny, creative people, but they're people.

I'll just say it: I love Sundance; my very first film won Sundance.

I think the older that I'm getting, the more I'm understand what a privileged job I have, and what an opportunity I have. Now I'm directing films and I'm getting my first movie in America off the ground, and you start to understand how the system really works.

I must say, to my great surprise and pleasure, I deeply loved making movies in the United States because of all the opportunities it gave me to work with people that I admire as artists.

I worked on 'Sarah Connor' even longer than 'Firefly.' And I always remembered how generous everyone was to me when I didn't know what to do, and I didn't know the rules, and I didn't know camera angles, and I didn't know lighting.

To me, 'Warrior' was a real turning point - probably one of the greatest experiences I've ever had as an actor on set.

I took the part in 'Mr. Holland's Opus' because no one had ever asked me to play 'a life' before. I get to age through 30 years. The idea really challenged me.

There's an incredible comfort level that I have on film sets because it's where I've grown up.

Blue Tongue Films is a very important part of my life.

In terms of finding that first international recognition of my work, coming back to Cannes is such a milestone in my life because it began actually with 'Devdas'.

A definite highlight was doing 'The Brothers McMullen.' Shooting that movie was such a joy - and then we wound up winning the Sundance Film Festival. That big-break moment is visceral. It happens once in a decade, maybe once in a lifetime.

I couldn't stand still at a desk for another year. I wanted to go out there and make films.

I didn't really make up my mind to be an actor until I did 'The Hitcher' with Rutger Hauer. I was about 17 or 18 when I did that, by which point I'd probably done a dozen or more movies or TV things, but 'The Hitcher' was the experience that made me want to study and commit and learn how to do this for my life.