Top 99 Quotes & Sayings by Andrew Haigh - Page 2

If you don't have money or you come from a background that doesn't have money, it's harder to achieve your ambition in life. It's not that you can't, but it becomes harder. Inequality is one of the worst things that can exist in our society, so I am interested in those kind of things.

We pass people in the street and ignore them when they're clearly suffering. It makes you wish we could all feel when someone needs something.

I think all of my male characters, I suppose, in all of my films, they're not necessarily the traditional version of masculinity.

For me, it's very important that shows about gay people are messy and complicated and are truthful about what we do.

If I can do a scene in one shot, it's in one shot. Most of my shots are pretty long. I think with 'Looking,' what we have in the first minute is a whole episode of a traditional TV show. I like to let things breathe; I like to let things have a certain tone.

I like going to a new environment with open eyes.

I'm happy to do gay material, and I'm gay, and I'm not embarrassed about it, but it's nice not being limited to only doing gay material.

Horses terrify me.

We have a choice every day to do whatever we do, and that choice is quite scary because it could absolutely change everything about our lives. It's important to keep reminding myself that I have a choice.

I think there's always a conflict within me about being comfortable and secure and then being an individual and fighting for what I want to be on an individual basis.

Class is really interesting to me, maybe because I'm from England where there is a pretty hideous, deep-rooted obsession with class. I don't like the obsession with class, but it certainly interests me.

The reality of our lives is never like what you see in those romantic comedies or dramas. Things don't always end good. Things don't usually end good.

Coming from a different perspective on a society is really interesting. I love the Paul Thomas Anderson's 'Phantom Thread,' and that's a version of Britishness and Englishness made by an American.

I feel like, throughout lots of my life, especially growing up, I felt powerless.

I went through a period of watching probably too many Bergman films in a row. I felt like I'd discovered the answer to what cinema should be.

When I was growing up, I was watching fairly standard American cinema.

If I see someone break down in tears, I don't necessarily feel empathy for them in those moments unless it's really warranted. I feel like a tear needs to be warranted in a movie; it needs to be earned.

There have been some good British gay films.

America is so diverse.

It's always important to try and get a real sense of the world around my characters. I especially think it helps actors.

It's always very important that you can completely disagree with someone, but it doesn't fundamentally mean that they are bad people.

I rode a horse once when I was young, and I fell off. I never wanted to ride a horse again.

Of course everyone should have the right to get married. But I think people need to remember sometimes that we don't all need to be the same. There's thousands of different types of relationships that people can have, whether it's completely monogamous or it's not monogamous, or they're married, or they're single or whatever it is.

My influences are all over the place. Different films have spoken to me at different times in my life, and they've helped create my idea of the kind of films I want to make.

'Looking' was always a niche show for a niche within a niche. It's a gay-themed show, so you're not going to get millions of straight people watching it - that's the inevitability of it.

You can't expect to connect with everybody, and that's all right. The more I make films, I'm learning that you don't have to make films for everybody. A film can be made for a smaller group of people than that, and it still warrants an existence.

I think the films that work the best are the ones that seem to be about one thing but then, under the surface, bubbling away, are lots more important questions that you're not really aware of, and when you leave the cinema, your mind is ablaze with different thoughts!

Men are both bad and awful. And women are both bad and awful. And they can both be good and wonderful on both sides.

We can all understand that feeling of being alone in the world trying to find ways to not be alone.

The endings to me are the key moment in 'Weekend' and '45 Years.' I know how I want my gut to feel at the ending. Even if I can't articulate in words what that feeling is, I'm trying to find ways to get there.

For a long time, gay men fought to be seen as different, doing our own thing: This is our lives; this is what we do. Accept it. There's a conservatism that has come into the gay community: 'We're just like you, just like everyone else.'

Certain people like the way I make films, and others do not. I've come to terms with the fact that there's no other way I can make films. If I tried to do it in a different way, it would never work.

Personally, I don't like to talk too much to the actors about the camera choices because I feel like the way I want them to perform is as if it feels very rooted in the real world and that I'm essentially stepping back and just watching and hoping they feel safe with me watching.

The kinds of films I like are the ones that take their time. If you reach an emotional pinnacle too early on in a film, that's kind of it. I think, as in real life, when you're getting to know someone, it starts off slowly.

That's the biggest thing I struggle with. We could never hope to represent every gay person in America. There will be people who will say, 'Well, my experience of being gay isn't like that,' to which I can only say, 'That's fine.'

If you're struggling, it's easy to feel powerless until you take control of it and assert what you want. I can understand that feeling. I can understand how it feels to be alone, to not want to get help from people and to not trust people who are actually wanting the best for you. I feel like that's true for a lot of people, actually.

You work really hard on something, and you know you can't always make great work. It just doesn't happen like that, I don't think, at least not for most people, anyways.

I'm really bad at knowing if something I've done is any good. I can't work it out; I can't be objective about anything I do.

In my own life, my parents divorced when I was young. I lived with my dad, not with my mum, after they got divorced. And it's been part of my life.