Christopher Nolan Quotes

You can get swept away by a musical, but real tears are rare.

If I go into a studio and find my truth of the moment, there are a number of people in the world who can relate to what I'm saying and are going to buy into what I'm doing. Not because it's the new thing of the moment, but because it's genuine emotion. Its how I feel. This is how I articulate the world.

There is a fine line I have to walk throughout the writing process in a novel. It is this line between drama and melodrama, and it is this line between evoking genuine emotional power and being manipulative.

We all know to feel sympathy for those who've suffered from drug addiction, child abuse, and terminal illness, so the set up elicits an emotional response that the story itself very well may not earn. Energy generated by the fiction itself is likely to produce more light.

I've always been drawn to the best writing that I can find. I don't care if it's in movies or theater or whatever - if you want to be in front of an audience, you have to do writing you believe in.

I'm supposed to make people cry, but not by manipulating.

If you put anger in the writing, then it's like an actor crying on stage. The audience will not cry with the actor and in some way inure itself against the emotion.

The most amazing thing for me is that every single person who sees a movie, not necessarily one of my movies, brings a whole set of unique experiences. Now, through careful manipulation and good storytelling, you can get everybody to clap at the same time, to hopefully laugh at the same time, and to be afraid at the same time.

Emotion resulting from a work of art is only of value when it is not obtained by sentimental blackmail.

It's very difficult to get an audience to be terrified of what's going on. Think about it: You're in a room with so many other people, so for them to be terrified and to care about what's going on on-screen takes a lot of work.

One of the things an actor tries to access is immediacy, so that you feel like you're experiencing it for the first time. But when you're playing a character who knows what's going to happen and can't stop himself to reacting although he knows he can't stop himself from reacting, there's a whole separate set of things to consider.

I never want to feel more than the viewers. I'm not trying to be an automaton. It's like when you see people laughing on camera, and you don't find it funny as a viewer - it's an offputting experience.

I find it hard to not like music if it has passion behind it and good integrity. Only if it's made for the wrong reasons and shows a lack of respect for its audience will I find something to dislike.

You either have to make people love you or you have to make them hate you, it doesn't really matter either way. If you can't bring that emotion out of your audience then you're not going to have them for long.

As an actor, it's very interesting to make the audience love you while you are doing horrendous things.

Humor is the secret into the audience's other ranges of emotions.

My goal is to always try to make you feel something, whether that's humor or sadness or excitement, and to try to manipulate screen space.

I always write with an audience in mind. If I feel that [connection] coming back at me then I feel like I'm doing my job. That's why people come to my music - for some emotional experience or a perspective, either on their own lives, or on the world that they're living in.

[Malipiero's advice to Casanova.] If you wish your audience to cry, you must shed tears yourself, but if you wish to make them laugh you must contrive to look as serious as a judge.

Self-expression is my goal, I want to be real with my feelings. Singing and dancing and all the joy that goes with performing come from my heart. If I can't feel it, I won't do it.

It's interesting, for me sappy means sentimental and something that gets you in your heart, gets you emotional. That's what I mean. Also, of course, it means that I'm slightly setting up the audience that there's a bit of fun involved, as well.

You can't write a song out of thin air you have to feel and know what you are writing about.

You can't just sing the song and live another life, you know. It's really difficult now because that's not what it's about. It's pop and pop just says that we could be actors. We could sing about stuff and not believe in it. It could be absolutely fraudulent and it doesn't really matter.

It's just an impulse, in some actors. You want to make the audience like you. That's the aim of the exercise.

Emotion will always win over coolness and cleverness. It's when a scene works emotionally and it's cool and clever, then it's great. That's what you want.