Highbrow Entertainment Quotes

You can't get down and dirty at the opera.

I still can't get over the idea that respectable adults now go to see superhero movies and that such films get reviewed in the 'New Yorker.' Clearly, I am seriously out of step with the times.

My tastes in all things lean towards the arty and boring. I like sports documentaries about Scrabble players, bands that play quiet, unassuming music, and TV shows that win awards. In that way, I am an elitist snob.

The opera is like a husband with a foreign title - expensive to support, hard to understand and therefore a supreme social challenge.

Most period drama is so earnest. A lot of it is about making yourself take seriously things you wouldn't normally.

Light, trivial comedy does not appeal - it is not something I go to see.

A lot of period dramas can appear quite arch to most people, stuffy.

I try to create some stupid entertainment for really smart people that they don't feel too stupid watching. In 'Xanadu,' the biggest laugh was a reference to Achilles.

My family don't watch a lot of what I do. Films are a bit too arty-farty for them, certainly the ones I do!

The tradition of classical music and the opera is such that it used to be the place where social intercourse could take place between all parts of society: politicians, industrialists, artists, citizens, etc. That tradition, I think, still exists, but it's much, much more diluted.