Top 58 Quotes & Sayings by Johan Renck

Gothenburg is the Baltimore or Liverpool or Marseille of Sweden - plagued by the death of wharfs and other industries, and with complex segregation of the populace from southern Europe, which once brought in a labor force that suddenly found itself living in remote projects without jobs.

I don't like fun stuff.

If I feel the labor and the gruesome process, that helps me appreciate the art.

I like dark, hopeless, beautiful tragedies.

I grew up all over the world, including countries such as Sweden, Norway, U.S.A., and Kuwait.

I'm Swedish. Sweden is known for its melancholia.

In many ways, shooting my first feature was more difficult than I had thought it would be, but it was still the most rewarding experience I have ever had.

I wish I was really talented in music because then I would be doing it. I felt that I could write a decent song, but it was a big struggle.

I played in bands very very young. I painted; I did photography, all kinds of things.

I'm drawn to stuff with a certain darkness, and darkness with beauty within it.

I'm very impatient, and I'm very curious.

Whenever I'm making a film, it has to be timeless.

One of the things I love about my job is the cornucopia of different professions in one.

I guess I found the life as a musician too counterproductive, as so much time was spent in tour buses & remote hotel rooms. As I am moderately hyperactive, this didn't suit my temper.

Brits are very, very expressive, whereas the Soviet and Eastern European way is much more stern, stone-faced. Vladimir Putin-esque in some way.

The interest in character-driven content over narrative-driven ditto is increasing; that's why television steps in. Personally, I love it, since psychology and character, really, are my beacons.

I was a huge fan of this band called Sparks. It was a pretty good inauguration to music, since their music is quite complex.

I'm very much drawn to melancholy and those kinds of emotions.

Building a cast is a card house. They lean on each other, provide for each other, and take from each other.

All my close friends are non-conformist. To say 'misfits' sounds bad, but there is something positive about being a little on the outside - it gives you an interesting perspective on things - and I think that's something Robyn and I share.

I'm a huge Crowley fan, I've always been. I tried to make a movie on his life a few years ago, but we didn't manage to put it together.

All creation requires a scientific brain.

I've always been interested in photography. I remember when I was about 14, I spent an entire summer selling lottery tickets in some little booth so I could make enough money to buy an Olympus camera.

I'm drawn to the dark but not the nihilistic aspects, the relentless parts, of darkness.

You'll find Swedes - maybe not as much as the Finns - thriving in melancholy.

The darkest aspects of imperialism are still very much prevalent in many cultures around the world; hundreds of years later, and we have a collective responsibility to encounter the deeds of our past.

I hate comedy. I don't even like comedy at all.

Movies are made for people to pay and go see them.

I've never been one to talk analytically about a music video or whatever I do.

Working with friends isn't easy - the nature of an artistic project means it's about two strong visions colliding and a bit of mental wrestling.

I've been working in television for a long time, and I know all aspects of television.

As a Scandinavian, I like hopelessness and the weird austerity in the hopelessness of things.

I have a huge love for music and always have.

Being a police officer in America is a tough job.

I grew up all over the world. My dad was a doctor but not a career-type doctor. He was very curious, so he took the whole family and moved to Miami in the '70s, and we lived there for a couple of years. Then we continued like that and lived in various places around the world.

The only way to make something good is if you make it difficult for yourself on every conceivable level. You can't cut corners; you can't rest on your laurels.

I think for something to be beautiful, it has to have some darkness in it; otherwise, it's just pretty. And pretty does not interest me at all.

When you're young, and you're doing stuff, you're making music, directing, making art, it's all future directed. You want to change stuff onward. And when you get older - this applies to me - you think about the things you want to do and how it will be perceived by your children one day.

I began my career as a recording artist, and eventually I started directing my own music videos.

Art is never finished. It is only abandoned.

I started out as musician and recording artist but quite soon started to do my own videos. One thing led to another, and soon I was making videos for a living.

I wish I had been born 20 years earlier, so I could have been in the movie business in the 1970s.

In the early 1990s, I was signed as a singer to the same label as Robyn. She was in her early teens, and I was in my twenties, so we didn't hang out, but our paths crossed so many times that we slowly got to know each other and became friends.

With my years of promos & commercials, I actually have a massive amount of experience with regards to production. There pretty much isn't one thing I haven't tried at least once.

I like being out on a limb and not know what we're doing and why: just deal with it, the mayhem, you know?

The first time I went behind the camera was in 1993. I felt, 'This is my thing,' and I knew that someday I'd make a feature.

In an ideal world, as a director, you usually wish you could do your own thing and not have to take anyone else's point of view into account, but occasionally you work with someone like Robyn, who brings a new set of ideas to the table, and the whole ends up much greater than the sum of the parts.

In this artistic world, you might as well find a way to work with somebody that you have admiration for.

I love Crowley for being an audacious man at certain point in time. I think he's greatly misunderstood. He was a good guy, but he was portrayed as an evil man, and he wasn't.

I've never been a frustrated person because I learnt at a very young age that the frustration I had inside of me had to do with creativity and the ability to transform that into action. I realized very early my restlessness had to be channelled into things I could do.

They say don't meet your heroes, but when it comes to Bowie, he truly is the most brilliant person I've ever met.

I think one big reason why Sweden might have a good reputation around the world is that if you look at Norway or Denmark or Finland, any of the Scandinavian countries, they all seem less interested in being a part of the larger world, where Sweden has always tried to reach out, whether it's with Volvos, Saabs, H&Ms, music, clothes.

Music is the highest art form.I still think that. I wish I was really talented in music because then I would be doing it. I felt that I could write a decent song, but it was a big struggle. It took a lot of time and effort for me, whereas a lot of my peers and other people seemed to have a much easier relationship to it. But I profoundly love music, and I still dream that I might one day try to write some new songs and record something - just for myself, to see what would happen.

Somebody once said that the ideal size of a country for democracy to work is around 10 million people - and that kind of makes sense if you think of it in very crude terms. In a smaller country, I guess it's easier to maintain some kind of common ground.I do think the Swedish system of government works really well. Obviously, everything doesn't work perfectly, but I like the principle of it.

Film is a narrative format. Some fashion films try to retain some of the poetic mystery, but most of the time they only end up looking like some crappy, pretentious film-school thing. So I think the interest in film is really about the fashion world finding another form of expression.

Do people think Swedes are cool? I think they think you're cool in spite of you being Swedish. But the good thing with being Swedish is that we're melancholic.

I was a huge fan of this band called Sparks. It was a pretty good inauguration to music since their music is quite complex. They were a little glammy, and me - being a kid and not really understanding the complexity of grown-up lyrics - I took the best out of it. But at the same time, it was mysterious enough and too far away from me for me to really be able to reach it. But they were my first love affair in the world of music. I loved that band.

We've always created stuff to go beyond our Swedish borders. I think we've always wanted to be noticed - to be known outside of Sweden.