A Quote by Keith Allen

I'm primarily an actor and only make documentaries when I see a story others have missed. — © Keith Allen
I'm primarily an actor and only make documentaries when I see a story others have missed.
I started in documentaries, and that was a great help to me with improvisation, because with documentaries, you're handed a big lump of footage, and you have to shape it and make it into a story - which I love doing.
You make documentaries because you love doing it; it's the only sane reason to make documentaries.
Make your life a story worth telling. You only get one shot at this existence, and one day when you’re gone the most important thing you’ll leave behind is the legacy of the life you lived. Make sure you make it a story you’re proud to have others tell.
The thing is, as a film director, you're essentially alone: You have to tell a story primarily through pictures, and only you know the film you see in your head.
I like the rock documentaries that make it seem real. Some rock documentaries are meant to make the bands look larger than life.
If I could make a decent living doing documentaries, I would. I don't really care about [the other] stuff so much. But you can't make a living doing documentaries. Although it has affected my work, at least in that I think I make fairly realistic-looking pictures.
I never thought about being the first black actor to win, even though everybody else talked about that. If I stop to think as a black actor, people will see me differently. If I play as a black actor, people will only see that. I think my key was to perform as an actor, not as a black actor. And after winning the Cesar, I was an actor with a Cesar. there are many more adjectives to describe who I am. I'm not only black.
Since we tend to see ourselves primarily in the light of our intentions, which are invisible to others, while we see others mainly in the light of their actions, which are all that's visible to us, we have a situation in which misunderstanding and injustice are the order of the day.
An actor's only perception is of their character, and they're looking at one piece. A writer is looking at the entire story. They're going to see things that the writer didn't see because they're only looking through their lens.
Sometimes we make decisions because it seems to be the only path visible at the moment. It's only later that we see there was more than one path, but the others were blocked from our vision at the time. That's the thing with hindsight, you see. Even if you can see it clearly, there's no going back. It's at that point we need to turn around and stare ahead and make a new life.
Critics can say what they like about the films, but very often, there's a certain expectation of documentaries that they're supposed to be like PowerPoint presentations. I see documentaries as movies. So when I see some critics writing that we could have done without the recreations altogether - well, perhaps.
The luxury that I have is I'm not career-minded, I just live from one film to the next. For a time, I was making documentaries, and all my documentaries were winning awards and stuff, and then I lost interest in documentaries.
I hope that not only my documentaries, but everybody's documentaries, last. It will really confuse historians in the next century, because they'll have, in addition to all the print material, they'll have all these pictures to look at.
I don't think there's so much difference between making documentaries and feature films. I think it's even harder to make documentaries.
But I've always felt that the less you know about an actor's personal life, the more you can get involved in the story in which he's playing a character. And I don't like to see movies where you know about everything that happens behind the scenes. I can't engage in the story if I know what's going on in the actor's head.
I'm not one of those people who sees documentaries as a stepping stone to doing fiction. I love documentaries and watch tons of documentaries. But, I like fiction films a lot, too.
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