A Quote by Paul Haggis

If you make a film and then two and a half, three years later, suddenly the country's changed and you look like you just happened to hit it. I actually like being contrarian. I would have preferred to come out three years ago when everyone was disagreeing with me. But hopefully it asks a lot of questions about our responsibility in sending young men and women to war, especially a war that's so complex, where there's no right answer, where they're forced with impossible decisions every day.
I couldn't get published for three years. Then the times changed: glasnost, perestroika. So, for three years, I wasn't allowed to publish 'The Unwomanly Face of War,' but then it changed.
Theatre is organic, film is not. Theatre you come every day and you work with a group of people and you're are all up for it and you all get to do the whole thing every night, be it two hours or three hours. In film you work in two or three minute bits and it's never in chronological order and then someone takes that away and makes it look like it all happened, or that you gave that performance.
I look old. To be honest, up until two or three years ago, my age put a lot of restrictions on me. I was told, 'You look like you're in your mid- to late-twenties, but you're actually too young.' There were a lot of restrictions like that when it came to casting. I even requested that they remove my age on my public profile.
It felt like 10 years, but I was actually in treatment for three-and-a-half years. I finally finished in April. Two years ago, I had a bone marrow transplant from my brother, which saved my life, so I feel really grateful.
I remember watching the Twin Towers collapse. Because it was another country and looked like a film, I just sort of thought, 'Oh.' I didn't think that much. Then three days later, it hit me. I was in a terrible state, and I was tearful for three or four days.
I would caution my Republican friends that [Obama has] three years to go, and in that three years the American people are going to want to see some progress and not just claims that this guy is out of office and we're going to do everything to destroy him or that somehow he is a 'socialist' taking over the country. Have we so lost our faith in this country that we think one person, one man can be can suddenly change our entire system? That's kind of absurd.
Well, we've faced very difficult decisions and challenges in our country, every one of us have, as we - since September 11th, as we fought the war on terror, all of those decisions that the President had to make to put young men and women in harm's way.
I did go to a film school in Sarajevo. I studied film and theatre directing. There was a war raging in the country while I was studying, and we did not have neither electricity nor cinemas for three and a half years.
For the three years I lived in New York leading up to moving out to Los Angeles for 'Mad Men,' I was an office temp at Ernst & Young in Times Square. That's about as desk-jobby as it can get. There was a lot of, 'Go two floors up and make a copy of this and then bring it to me.'
Shall I tell you why young men love war? . . . In peace, there are a hundred questions with a thousand answers! In war, there is only one question with one right answer. . . . Going to war makes you a man. It is emotionally exciting and morally restful.
It's terrifying. Women make their first film, their second film, and then it's like a nightmare, right, to make the third or fourth? I mean, it's almost like men can have three films in a row that don't do that well and keep on going.
War today is such a more visible thing. We see it on television, on CNN. In 1914, war was a concept. There was a naivety and stupidity that war would be a great lark. It's not that different from Gone With The Wind, where all the young men can't wait to go off to fight and then two hours later in the movie, we see how the reality of that has come home to them.
Everyone is born creative; everyone is given a box of crayons in kindergarten. Then when you hit puberty they take the crayons away and replace them with dry, uninspiring books on algebra, history, etc. Being suddenly hit years later with the 'creative bug' is just a wee voice telling you, 'I'd like my crayons back, please.
Two or three years ago, every game I want to score. And after I score a goal I have a spark and I'm so happy I want more. Now I'mkind of different. I'm not saying I lost my spark - I still have it - but I don't chase the goal as much as I used to. I'm playing for the team andI still know I can score, but it's different than two or three years back.Look at great teams like Detroit a couple of years ago; they winthe Stanley Cup and guys only score 25 goals, nobody has a really big season. You have to play defense, that's how you win.
Now take a look at the way the Drug War is conducted over the past 40 years. It goes back farther, but start from 40 years ago: There's very little spent on prevention and treatment. There's a lot on policing, a ton of stuff on border control and a lot on out-of-country operations. And the effect on the availability of drugs is almost undetectable; drug prices don't change on measures of availability. So there are two possibilities: Either those conducting the Drug War are lunatics, or they have another purpose.
You know, it only happens a handful of times in your career, where you walk out of an audition feeling like all the stars aligned, my preparation paid off, something magical happened in the room. I've gotten really lucky and I've gotten to work a lot, and I would say it's only happened, like, two or three times, where I've walked out and been like, This was the right thing and the right choice and they should just cast me.
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