I was brought up by the English side of my family, who are very repressed and working class. Absolutely lovely, but very English.
My lighter, more superficial side will always steal a march on the deeper side and therefore always win. You can't imagine how often I've tried to push away this Anne, which is only half of what is known as Anne - to beat her down, hide her.
To me, Ennis stands for the conservative side of America. He's the biggest homophobe in the whole movie - culturally and psychologically - but by the time he admits his feelings, it's too late.
Genuine feelings cannot be produced, nor can they be eradicated. We can only repress them, delude ourselves, and deceive our bodies. The body sticks to the facts.
Elder McKinley wants his homosexuality to be turned off. To be a perfect Mormon, he has to put his feelings away.
I think Nelly [Ternan] actually has something very conservative about her, and she's very judgmental of (this other character's) situation, and can see that's about to happen to herself. So she judges it even more harshly [because] it's what she fears becoming.
It is impossible to overlook the extent to which civilization is built upon a renunciation of instinct.
In times of social tension we pull back on expression, and we always end up believing that it was the wrong thing to do.
I'm from a fancy, well-raised background. We were very well-behaved and not allowed to swear. It's the kind of place where people hide their problems under the rug and pretend it's all perfect. Eventually, you get sick of that.
Perhaps the best function of parenthood is to teach the young creature to love with safety, so that it may be able to venture unafraid when later emotion comes; the thwarting of the instinct to love is the root of all sorrow and not sex only but divinity itself is insulted when it is repressed. To disapprove, to condemn the human soul shrivels under barren righteousness.
The show is like an Edwardian play - emotional life gets stepped on for the sake of accepted manners, and that's terrific for actors to play in.
