A Quote by Yorgos Lanthimos
I always loved films, and when I decided to go to film school, it was with the excuse that I would go into making commercials, because that would be a proper profession, and people wouldn't think I was crazy.
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I was making commercials. That's how I learned the craft. That was the marketing part of it: directing commercial for TV. It wasn't the most common thing to become a filmmaker in Greece. I started by saying I was interested in marketing and have a proper job in advertising and commercials. Basically, I studied film to learn how to do marketing, and commercials. As I studied film I learned I'd be interested in making films instead of commercials.
Most people don't really understand what it takes to get a film made, and the struggles. I think anyone who makes a film goes through their own set of struggles. People go to extraordinary lengths to get films made. I hope it's of interest to people. One would think that it would be very easy, with an iconic character like James Bond, to keep making the films, but it hasn't been. But, it sure has been entertaining and rewarding.
Having to go back and forth between school and filming would sometimes be frustrating because I loved school. It was my chance to be around other people my age. But when you're leaving school to go to a set that's filled with kids your age, then it's fine.
NYU Film School was the way to learn about film, to be exposed to film, to go to repertory houses, to be exposed to New York and see films. I would go to the library and see one, two or three movies a day.
I always loved performing! My mom said anytime there was an opportunity to get up and perform I would! I would volunteer to go up on stage at Disneyland when I was 2 or 3! I just always loved making people laugh or just entertaining them.
As a kid, I always wanted to be like Spielberg and to make wonderful movies. Even when I was making 'Indiana Jones,' I was looking at how he would come up with these amazing shots and how he would choreograph the blocking and all that. So I knew from early on I would go to film school and try to work behind the camera.
I mean I met James Wan at film school. That's where we met. I didn't go to film school to find someone else to work with. I was thinking I would go and learn to direct and go and be a director like everyone else at school.
There hadn't been one done since the late 70s. I was living in Brooklyn, had no connection to Roger Corman, to no one in this movie. I didn't go to film school. I'm like the person who should have never made this film. But I just decided to put one foot in front of the other. I was writing film articles for magazines at the time. I convinced an editor from one of the magazines that I was working for to give me a shot to do a piece on Roger. This was an excuse to go meet him.
I would want to create an amphitheater outside of California where I would play everyday, and then people would have to come to me. I would create all this crazy stage decor and film it. Or I would just stay inside my home and do films. I would be like the modern Maya Deren.
If you would be just as content winning a local Golden Gloves fight as you would making a pile of money as a professional, then fine, go become a boxer. But if the whole idea is for you to get rich, my God, stay in school and learn a profession.
Going to school in San Francisco, you're not going to meet as many people that are making films as you would if you went to film school in New York or L.A.
You know when I was a high school student I wasn't a very good student. Upon graduation we were asked if we would become a full working adult or go to university. I decided to go to film school and still to this day I try to avoid being a full working adult.
I think my mom is the inspiration of me wanting to do film and TV and be an actor because she loved film so much. She loved, like, horror films and action films, so growing up, she loved watching all the Charles Bronson films and all the westerns.
There are shoes in my closet that people would go crazy over. That's where my giving back comes in. I might never wear these shoes, but some kids would go crazy for them.
I think, to go to the bottom of it all, that the films I have made and my kind of film-making is a hybrid type of film-making - in that it isn't American, it isn't Italian.
I didn't see films when I was young. I was stupid and naïve. Maybe I wouldn't have made films if I had seen lots of others; maybe it would have stopped me. I started totally free and crazy and innocent. Now I've seen many films, and many beautiful films. And I try to keep a certain level of quality of my films. I don't do commercials, I don't do films pre-prepared by other people, I don't do star system. So I do my own little thing.
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