Top 35 Quotes & Sayings by Neil Marshall

I always wanted to be a filmmaker and became one through sheer single-mindedness. I came to filmmaking from a background in graphic design. I went to film school at Newcastle Polytechnic.

I would love to do a Black Widow movie. That's perfect, I would love to do that. That character is really interesting: she doesn't have any superpowers; she just has extraordinary skills, and the world that she comes from, being this ex-K.G.B. assassin, I find that really fascinating, yeah.

I thought 'Dead Man's Shoes' was a masterpiece.

I enjoy scaring people too much to let it go!

I do enjoy intense, bloodthirsty action, but I like to blend and cross genres. I don't want to be too predictable.

There's a real kind of snobbery in the U.K. about horror films.

I think I'd like to do a big movie with a strong female lead, whether or not she would be a superhero. I'm more interested in characters like Scarlett Johansson in 'Lucy.' I'm less interested in people with superpowers because I can't identify with them.

The score I always have on heavy repeat is 'Raiders Of The Lost Ark!'

So much of 'Doomsday' is taken from the early 'Mad Max' films.

I set out to do a horror film with 'Dog Soldiers,' and what I came out with at the end of the day was something that was more of a cult movie, more of a black comedy with some horror elements in it. It kind of went over the top.

I'm quite interested in adapting some of James Herbert's early work. 'The Dark'... But I was always desperate to do an adaptation of 'War of the Worlds' until the Beard stole it from underneath my feet.

I don't think they're gratuitous with the nudity on 'Game of Thrones.' It's very much part of the world. There's a lot of it, but that's the world they come from. It never is there to distract from the scene or the actors or story.

My dad's a history buff, and I spent a lot of time on Hadrian's Wall. I became fascinated by the idea of what was so terrifying up there that the Romans built a 60-mile long, 30-ft-high stone wall to keep it out.

I don't really have a life outside of movies. But I like to climb mountains and walk the dogs. I like fine wines and good restaurants.

Pretty much every society, every culture in the world has some version of the Arthur legend, so everybody knows it; certainly in the western world, everybody knows King Arthur, but nobody knows what happens next.

Shooting against greenscreen... my choice of filming is, like, I'd rather shoot on location than shoot on a set, and I'd rather shoot on a set than shoot against greenscreen. You start stripping away the layers of reality, and it becomes a lot less fun to actually film.

I was a film editor for eight years before I made my first feature, 'Dog Soldiers.' I am from Newcastle upon Tyne, in the northeast of England.

The guys on 'Game of Thrones' trust me implicitly to take care of the action stuff. I don't mess with their drama, but they allow me to come up with ideas like 'Hey, what if the giant had a bow? And what if he shot some guy off the wall?' With 'Constantine,' too, they really trust me to scare the audience.

One episode of 'Game of Thrones' is equivalent to my film 'Centurion' in budget and scope. 'Centurion' has a longer running time, but that's kind of the only difference, and I think people now, if they want drama, they watch TV.

'Raiders of the Lost Ark' made me want to make films. I am wild about the films of John Carpenter, Ridley Scott, Howard Hawks and Sam Peckinpah.

With the exception of 'Descent,' that was a very conscious thing to make an action or horror movie that was an all-female cast because I hadn't seen anything like that before.

I got plenty of grief for 'Blackwater,' because in the books, there's this huge chain across the harbor that features prominently in the battle. And we simply weren't able to do it with our budget and do it any justice, so we had to lose it.

I see myself more as an action director. All right, I do enjoy intense, bloodthirsty action but I like to blend and cross genres. I don't want to be too predictable.

Roman history was kind of unavoidable where I was growing up. It was everywhere - all the place names and ruins and forts. My dad's a history buff, and I spent a lot of time on Hadrian's Wall. I became fascinated by the idea of what was so terrifying up there that the Romans built a 60-mile long, 30ft high stone wall to keep it out?

I love CG - it's a great tool. I just don't think you should use it to replace reality; you should use it to augment and enhance. Do matte paintings, do composites, do replications, stuff like that, but you're taking something real and working with that as opposed to trying to fake it from scratch. The human brain can tell the difference.

My belief is that if you start a film all the way up at level 10, you've got nowhere to go.

I love splashing the blood around.

The '80s just had this sense of outrageous fun coupled with great stories and characters. Then there's the practical effects and buckets of gore in movies. These are movies that, for the most part, still stand up to this day. But I guess the real reason for my love and obsession with this period is these were my first horror movies. I was a teenager during the '80s and I think spending that part of your life in that particular time really has an impact on you for the rest of your life.

I think there's a whole book being written about it in the UK. I don't know if you can get it here. It's about all the hidden messages and meetings in this and the fact that it is about women and the fact that this cave is full of blood and all this kind of stuff. And when I was making it, I didn't make it with that specifically in mind, but I always had it in the back of mind and I thought, 'Let's just throw it in there and see what people make of it.' And people seem to be making quite a lot of it. So I don't want to spell it out or say this, that or the other.

But the smoking is very frustrating. Who knows where it will go; where the story will go; where the character will go? There's still lots of options.

Whatever the regulations are, you can be as dark and disturbing as you want and we're going to go in that direction. The intention is to be as dark and scary as possible with the show. And that was our whole kind of plan going in, to make it scary. So we're going to explore all kinds of things.

It's the one thing, a compromise I guess. On network it's the one thing you can't smoke on network. That's one of his character traits. We're working around that. We're trying to get aspects of it in there as much as possible. We'll see.

At the end of the day, you're trying to make a certain film within a certain budget. Those rules never change.

I alwyas want to try and create new looks and new things, but equally scary, hopefully. But a new kind of style.

I think as long as the standard of quality, the story-telling, film-making, acting etc. etc. remains consistent, then you've got a good change of making a decent anthology.