Top 72 Quotes & Sayings by Marianne Elliott

I worked in casting for about five years before I became a director, and that taught me a huge amount because you never actually will see the character walk through the door - and if you do, then you have to be slightly suspicious of that.

I always wanted to beat my own path.

I felt like that growing up - that I didn't have a voice.

Some directors have the gift of the gab, but I don't.

Directors have this mask of being in control and in charge, but underneath, I'm terrified.

There's a certain type of theatre that I haven't got any time for at all - established, boring, same-old stuff without any reason or passion. There's quite a lot of it about, and it motivates me to try to do something different, something risky, raw, ugly, and challenging.

Staging any play is very exposing because, if you are going to do it well, you have to put so much of yourself into it.

When I was a kid, I never spoke. I would sit under a table and not speak to anybody. No words for years.

In subsidized theater, you are encouraged to take risks. It's about being imaginative and artistic. That's the priority. It might not be a success, but let's try.

'Friends' is easy to dismiss, but it's really good television - the art with which those actors play with comedy shouldn't be denigrated. And they also know how to play irony, which I think a lot of English actors might find quite difficult.

It's predominantly a male society, predominately a male culture, predominantly a male theatre, and predominantly male critics, but that's changing, definitely.

The less subsidy we have, the more the 'producers' take over, and the 'bottom line' becomes the raison d'etre. That's quite an unappealing landscape for artists.

If it is just another run-of-the-mill show, then what is the point?

You need to see yourself in what you direct, I think - directing is quite self-indulgent from that point of view.

I was 28 before I started putting on productions. I got in the back door by doing fringe shows and a lot of assisting, and I learned on the job. There weren't many female directors when I was starting out. I slowly gained confidence and understanding of the theater, but on my own terms.

I think theater is so undervalued. I have seen things there that have been far more vivid than things that actually have happened.

A bad audition is usually the director's fault, not the actor's. It's up to the director to get the atmosphere right to get the best out of your auditionees.

As you get older, you realise that your identity becomes more important - the environment in which you have grown is actually part of who you are just as much as your family or your school.

It's incredible how London-centric the theatre world is. Certain actors won't travel away from London anymore for work; practitioners often aren't taken seriously enough unless their work is seen in London; and it's sometimes very difficult to get national critics to review shows - especially if there's a clash with a London press night.

I'm quite unusual in directing terms: I'm a woman. I'm quite a girly girl. I was never academic.

My generation feels it has been lied to a great deal.

I suppose I always find a lot of characters that are deeply, deeply keening with a sense of yearning and desire through sadness, but they have a bravery that keeps them going despite that.

If you are working in a publicly subsidized building, then you have a responsibility to deliver truly interesting, risky, innovative, even provocative work. Work that speaks to your audience in many resonant ways. The priority is less about the financial rewards.

I'm really fascinated by other directors' methods. I've done a lot of learning by observation.

I'm interested in teasing out the contemporary issues in what I'm working on, however old the piece might be, whenever I'm working on it.

If you put a blank canvas in front of Matisse and say, 'This has to be a success,' who's going to pick up a paintbrush?

I used to love getting older.

I believe that theater has to be utterly life-changing for the people watching it.

I hope that subsidised theatres continue to be rewarded for the wonder of talent they provide to this industry, on stage and off.

I suppose what's so amazing about working at the National Theatre is that, because it's a subsidized theatre, you're not trying to create a product that's going to have a mass market in order to make the money back.

I never wanted anything to do with the theatre as a child. I was dragged there under duress.

It would be quite interesting to use Kermit the Frog to act like a real frog. But it wouldn't produce captivating theatre.

I've seen many shows ruined by bad reviews and good reviews, so I always tell my actors not to read the reviews until after the run is over.

'War Horse' is just an extraordinary being.

I suppose that I'm excited by exciting theater. It takes a risk to show us the world in a new way.

I've enjoyed lots of productions, and it's always been down to the actors I've been working with.

I would like to see more female stories out there, particularly older female stories.

I'm always drawn to female stories with female protagonists, and I particularly yearn for more older actresses to take centre stage in 2018.

I had done drama at university, but I never thought I could be a director. There were so few female directors then. I just assumed you had to be a man to be a director. I also assumed you had to be extremely authoritarian and extremely intellectual, none of which I was.

I hope for continued bravery and risk-taking for all theatremakers in 2018 and beyond.

My father was a director, and my mother and grandparents were actors, so I spent a great deal of my time as a teenager trying to get away from the theatre.

I just think that you have to approach anything you do with a huge amount of integrity - I don't really care where it comes from, whether it's a children's piece or an adult piece.

I had a very embarrassing time acting extremely badly at university, which is when directing suddenly became so attractive.

I'm very much of the opinion that theatre is a collective art form, not just one person's vision.

With everything I do, there always seems to be a massive risk involved.

It's difficult to find an actress prepared to play a fading star.

Whether you're a man or a woman, life can be very, very difficult and confusing and desperate, and it's life-enhancing to know that somehow, there is a way through it.

The actors work out how to create the show with me during the rehearsals. They owe it to themselves and each other to maintain that contract regardless of what the critics say.

You have to lead by example. You have to be the calmest person in the room. You have to be very open. I think the qualities of a director are to enable and to find the best in everybody.

I didn't want to just be remembered for 'War Horse.'

It's a tremendous asset if you have a visual eye because you can make huge visual statements in a very theatrical way and play to the strength of theatre. But the high end of directing is working with actors and making the acting the best it can be.

Often during rehearsals, I catch myself thinking, 'God, this is hard. Why am I always choosing such difficult plays to put on?'

I am quite an insecure person, and I think that, like any director, if I'm asked about my vision for a piece, I feel very vulnerable.

Horses are wild animals, essentially, and they're not there to do what humans want them to - they can be browbeaten or cajoled or trained, but they don't hear English; they're not obedient most of the time.

The better the acting is, the less visible the director and the less visible the actor.

If you can't see it, you can't be it. It's just having those brilliant women break out and do something - then other girls can say, 'I can do it, too!'

My dad had a big influence on me, and although I was never very bright at school, I used to love philosophising with him about big universal things - and I think that's what directing is.

For me, it's life or death doing plays: there's this perfectionist thing about me that it has to be brilliant - anything less than that is a failure.

We're always steered towards what is good in the canon by a male perspective. I like to do plays with a female protagonist who finds her way through. My way is unusual.

I find theater emotionally expensive and all-involving. You have to pour so much blood and passion and heart into it. And so much time. Why do that for something that's only vaguely interesting and anyone can do it?