Top 81 Quotes & Sayings by Lenny Abrahamson - Page 2

I was interested in the narrative of how we nurture our elite in this society: all that stuff about believing in yourself and not accepting second best. Our inner world is at odds with that.

As a small kid, I had this huge desire to be thought of as really clever.

Hollywood is probably the most active centre of film-making in the world, but it's also a very difficult place in which to find your voice... It was also a far more civilised industry in Ireland.

Established actors will challenge you if they don't agree with the way you are taking it, and you have to argue it. But with a younger cast, they are more likely to wonder whether what they are doing is okay instead of trying to second guess the director. That helps push you.

Although I was really interested in physics, I think I wanted to do it because I thought it was really hard. I did theoretical physics.

The thing about America - it's different everywhere, but visually, it's amazing to shoot in the desert in the New Mexico light. It's really hard to shoot in that desert and make anything look not amazing.

On your first film, you think these are going to be your closest friends for the rest of your life. You form a bond, but then you go back to the rest of your life.

I was a bachelor for a long time, and I got into all these really lazy habits work-wise. I'd just work as long as I wanted into the night. There was no structure.

I can think back to being four or five and not wanting to sit at the kids' table because I thought it was demeaning. I was this ridiculous little kid.

When you're shooting, there's terrible pressure, and you never switch off. Every day is like the day before an exam; it's relentless.

I'm not an academic type in term of personality. I had my share of madness as a teenager.

I wanted to make films that were culturally relevant in my own country, that challenged people, and that people talked about.

There was a golden era in film-making in Hollywood back in the 1970s, and although there is some great independent film-making in America, it's actually very hard to get independent films made in the United States. It's much more feasible from Europe.

It's very important to have a good relationship with the crew and cast because you want to get the best out of them. They'll work really hard for you if they like you.

After 'Adam and Paul,' I had offers from American agents, but I think I would have been swallowed up.

If you're in Hollywood, with no track record, it's pretty odds-on that you can get swamped and overwhelmed by the sheer scale of it all; particularly with the intense commercial push that you feel there.

I came from a classic, literate, intellectual Jewish family.

I think people like to have their categories clear. They want to know if it's fiction or fact, biopic or not.

There should always be that leeway because if you think of your character as sort of absolutely fixed, then you just try and find actors to come and do exactly that thing, then you're not gonna be working with that actor's own set of internal impulses and who they are, so the best work is always a coming together of the actor and the character.

Film is so much about that intensity of focus that there always needs to be some tension and some forward motion. The novel goes into a series of lovely observations about the world, but you've got to find the story.

People who don't quite fit society, they are often kind of either under an awful lot of pressure or otherwise not acceptable to the mainstream and that tells us a lot about who we are. The people that don't fit are a great way of reflecting on all of us.