Mike Mills Quotes

Quotes about:

Film Grief Sadness

Grief and memory go together. After someone dies, that's what you're left with. And the memories are so slippery yet so rich.

Mike Mills

Memories, Grief, Together

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We never did things as we were supposed to do. That was part of our ethic. We did what felt right to us, not what someone told us we should do.

Mike Mills

Ethics, Should, Felt

"REM's Mike Mills: 'To expose yourself, warts and all, was very daunting'". Interview with Dave Simpson, www.theguardian.com. May 26, 2014.

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There's great sadness and life doesn't work out like you would want, on a lot of levels, but there's no need to feel all alone. This happens to everybody, so there's no self-pity. This is the ride that humans are on, and all of it is essential for our natural part of it.

Mike Mills

Sadness, Self, Work Out

"Director Mike Mills Exclusive Interview BEGINNERS". Interview with Christina Radish, collider.com. June 4, 2011.

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Sadness is a super important thing not to be ashamed about but to include in our lives. One of the bigger problems with sadness or depression is there's so much shame around it. If you have it you're a failure. You are felt as being very unattractive.

Mike Mills

Sadness, Important, Unattractive

"SFIFF ’11: Ewan McGregor & Mike Mills Talk The Sadness, Humor & Joy Of ‘Beginners’" by Kevin Jagernauth, www.indiewire.com. April 25, 2011.

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As a son of a man who pretended to be one thing for 33 years of my life and then was another thing, the questions of 'what is real' and 'what is not real' are very blurrily vivid to me.

Mike Mills

Real, Son, Men

"Mike Mills on “Beginners,” a Love Letter to his Father" by Peter Knegt, www.indiewire.com. June 3, 2011.

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I would hate to think I'm promoting sadness as an aesthetic. But I grew up in not just a family but a town and a culture where sadness is something you're taught to feel shame about. You end up chronically desiring what can be a very sentimental idea of love and connection. A lot of my work has been about trying to make a space for sadness.

Mike Mills

Hate, Sadness, Thinking

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The littlest thing can have the strongest connection when you're grieving. Your Proustian, poetic nerve is turned up to ten.

Mike Mills

Grieving, Nerves, Connections

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My dad's gay experiences really had a very positive influence on me and my straight relationships - how to better accept all the weirdness and ambiguity and ups and downs and paradoxes. I knew from the beginning I was writing about love.

Mike Mills

Dad, Writing, Gay

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Actors are pretending for you, but they're not lying. They are not putting on a guise instead of themselves. They are finding things inside that they have experienced.

Mike Mills

Lying, Actors, Pretending

"Biography/ Personal Quotes". www.imdb.com.

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My graffiti really comes more from a May '68, sort of Situationist vibe than the hip-hop world. I think a real graffiti artist would find me a poser.

Mike Mills

Real, Thinking, Artist

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People ask 'How does doing a film compare to doing an ad?' Well, when you're doing a commercial you don't have to sell tickets. You have a captured audience. Which is actually completely rare and great; it gives you a lot of freedom. When you make a film, you have to do advertisements for the film.

Mike Mills

People, Giving, Tickets

Interview With Brendan Fowler, www.interviewmagazine.com. March 26, 2009.

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Humans are vulnerable, messy little animals and that's normal. And all I want to do is make a space for that in my films.

Mike Mills

Animal, Space, Want

"'Indie' director Mike Mills is as happy shooting for Nike as Sonic Youth". Interview with Andrea Hubert, www.theguardian.com. July 15, 2011.

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There is a drunkenness to grief, which is good.

Mike Mills

Grief, Drunkenness

"Director Mike Mills Exclusive Interview BEGINNERS". Interview with Christina Radish, collider.com. June 4, 2011.

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As someone who grew up in a house where there wasn't a lot of talking, I'm used to just looking at the world. And in general I often feel like I just don't understand what's happening. That everybody else does, but I don't quite get it.

Mike Mills

Talking, House, Doe

"'This film is unmarketable'". Interview with Pascal Wyse, www.theguardian.com. October 25, 2006.

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There's some movies I watch, they're kind of like my anti-anxiety pill, my anti-depressant pill. I watch them at least once or twice a month probably. And I never stop learning from them as a filmmaker.

Mike Mills

Anxiety, Pills, Watches

"'Thin Blue Line' Piqued Mike Mills Movie Interest". "Morning Edition" with Steve Inskeep, www.npr.org. January 3, 2012.

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Being a good Hans Haacke student, part of his influence on me is that there's no difference between a gallery show and a film - or even an ad and a T-shirt-in terms of cultural legitimacy. They're just different contexts in which to have some sort of communication.

Mike Mills

Communication, Differences, Different

Interview With Brendan Fowler, www.interviewmagazine.com. March 26, 2009.

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If you ask me, the place that a story happens is as equal character. It's almost like an ecological viewpoint: These people are living in this piece of land, and in this piece of land in this time this is possible. For me, I almost think location first. It's time first - what year is it - then where are we, and then who is in it.

Mike Mills

Character, Thinking, Land

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OK, so my parents were married in 1955 and my mom knew my dad was gay and my dad knew he was gay and so I was, like, 'Why in the heck did you get married?' Like, what was going on? What was that time? It's like this crazy paradox that my whole life is based on, or my family's based on. So I spent a lot of time trying to understand '55.

Mike Mills

Mom, Dad, Crazy

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My experience, with both my parents, is that grief has a lot of down, sad things, but I was also really emotionally raw, in the first year after each of them passed. Flowers smelled more intensely, my relationships were hotter, and I was more willing to risk. I was going for it a lot more. I was 'unsober' and I wasn't playing by my rules.

Mike Mills

Grief, Flower, Years

"Director Mike Mills Exclusive Interview BEGINNERS". Interview with Christina Radish, collider.com. June 4, 2011.

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L.A. is so isolated and unhip in a way; it gives you room to figure out who you are and explore more personal stuff.

Mike Mills

Giving, Stuff, Way

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The oldest sibling always knows things that the younger ones don't.

Mike Mills

Sibling, Knows

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I'm not a craftsman of graphics or art or film. I'm more of an idea generator and manufacturer.

Mike Mills

Art, Ideas, Film

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I'm into people's emotional lives and relationships and the complications of living. That's my turf.

Mike Mills

Emotional, People, Complication

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I pretty much believe that a film is a film and when an audience watches a film, they finish it.

Mike Mills

Believe, Watches, Film

Interview with Todd Gilchrist, www.ign.com. January 23, 2006.

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I guess I watch movies to make myself happier a lot.

Mike Mills

Watches, Watch Movie

"'Thin Blue Line' Piqued Mike Mills Movie Interest". "Morning Edition" with Steve Inskeep, www.npr.org. January 3, 2012.

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Born: December 17, 1958
Occupation: Composer
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