Latest Mike Leigh Quotes from Interviews

Quotes about:

• I did sit in cinemas as a kid looking at English and American movies thinking, "Wouldn't it be great if the characters were like real people?" And the worst thing is films are constantly advertising themselves, drawing attention to their style of things. But actually I make films that I think are extremely sophisticated and cinematic. But you don't want the audience thinking about the bloody film. You want them to think about what's going on, and believe in it. Be flies on the wall, you know?

  Mike Leigh

  Wall, Real, Believe

  Source: www.avclub.com

• Because of the way that I work with the actors and because a scene is not in this rigid and literal interpretation of something written, I can constantly change stuff, which means I can get a scene absolutely perfect, and then when we go to shoot it, the requirements of the shot mean it would be useful to extend the dialogue or take a line out or swap things around. So the camera doesn't serve the action. The action serves the camera. That's important. So it becomes more and more organic and integrated.

  Mike Leigh

  Mean, Perfect, Important

  Source: www.avclub.com

• If I'm ever working on a set and anyone talks about a master shot, I say there is no master shot. Before I even went to film school, I learned about movies by being in a British feature film, where everything was shot master shot, mid-shot, close-up. But I reject the idea of a master shot. You don't shoot everything mechanically; you find imaginative ways that serve the action.

  Mike Leigh

  School, Action, Film

  Source: www.avclub.com

• I think the camera has got to be motivated. You can't have things arrived at gratuitously. Everything has to have an organic function, but the more comfortable I've become and the more imaginative and sophisticated and the more exploratory I've become at the medium, the more I've subtly deviated away from that in various ways.

  Mike Leigh

  Thinking, Sophisticated, Motivated

  Source: www.avclub.com

• I discover what my film is by embarking on the journey of making it.

  Mike Leigh

  Journey, Film

  Source: www.avclub.com

• As a general habit and general tendency, I prefer not to bog a piece down with a great number of transitory, contemporary references, because in the end, I'm concerned, not in an abstract way, but an actual way, with creating a world which has a universality to it - even though what goes on is made up of texture and detail, contemporary detail.

  Mike Leigh

  World, Habit, Abstract

  Source: www.avclub.com

• What I do is to collaborate with each actor and work one-on-one to create a character. And that is a matter of huge complexity and is a combination of a great deal of discussion and a lot of practical work. It involves a lot of consideration for the real people out there, and all kinds of sources of real people. The result is the character. But I'm not supposed to talk about what it is we do, because it's nobody's business.

  Mike Leigh

  Real, Character, People

  Source: www.avclub.com

• I don't know what the character is going to be. We sit down and we create a character, and all of the characters in all of my films are made like that.

  Mike Leigh

  Character, Film

  Source: www.avclub.com

• It's an unhealthy habit to say that life is what you make of it, and if you want to be happy, then you can be happy. That's just rubbish, basically. Life is about luck and it's about circumstances and socioeconomic conditions and all the rest of it, but you know, you can also make choices. It's about spirit and generosity and all the other things, too.

  Mike Leigh

  Generosity, Choices, Luck

  Source: www.avclub.com

• I try and create for the audience something that relates to real-life experience. When you're meeting somebody for the first time, all you have to go on are your preconceptions and your stereotypes and whatever else, but gradually as you get to know them, they change. They become more three-dimensional, and you start to see them in layers.

  Mike Leigh

  Trying, Life Experience, Stereotype

  Source: www.avclub.com

• I hate period films - and there are plenty of them - where they say, "Let's not do contemporary language because the audience won't understand it;" "let's not make the girls wear corsets, because it's not sexy" and all that sort of thing. Gradually it disintegrates into a no man's land: you don't really believe it's a period scene and it doesn't feel like it's now because it's not now. You don't feel it's quite real and you don't believe in it.

  Mike Leigh

  Girl, Sexy, Hate

  Source: www.interviewmagazine.com

• It's important to be true to the events, but the most important thing is to get to the essence of the experience. Not to be bogged down in an academic way by a notion of the truth. First of all, the truth is an illusive and spurious concept.

  Mike Leigh

  Essence, Important, Events

  "Mike Leigh, Unscripted". Interview with Emma Brown, www.interviewmagazine.com. December 21, 2014.

• He's [Constable] a great painter as far as it goes, but I don't think he's remotely interesting. Not really. It's very pretty and it's very thorough, but it's not evocative, it's not dramatic, it doesn't do what Beethoven does - it doesn't shake you down to the roots of your soul, which Turner does. Constable is just very nice, basically. And moving on to personality, Constable was a very dull character.

  Mike Leigh

  Nice, Moving, Character

  "Mike Leigh, Unscripted". Interview with Emma Brown, www.interviewmagazine.com. December 21, 2014.

• I wonder if I would have been capable of producing anything if I worked in a more conventional way with a prewritten script, because I'm of the procrastinator class.

  Mike Leigh

  Class, Way, Scripts

  Interview with Chloe Veltman, www.believermag.com. March/April 2009.

• You can't make a movie about the artist without shooting outdoors.

  Mike Leigh

  Artist, Shooting

  Interview with Chloe Veltman, www.believermag.com. March/April 2009.

• People have been very resistant to giving me more than the standard amount of money. So I keep making films on a similar scale. Which is fine, but also frustrating.

  Mike Leigh

  People, Giving, Film

  Interview with Chloe Veltman, www.believermag.com. March/April 2009.

• I can't negotiate and collaborate with a character to create a distilled dramatic investigation of the raw material. I need to work with an actor. That stuff about actors who stay in character all the time is nonsense.

  Mike Leigh

  Character, Needs, Raw Materials

  Interview with Chloe Veltman, www.believermag.com. March/April 2009.

• The delineation between the actor and his part is a practical matter. When the camera runs, you want the actor to be the character.

  Mike Leigh

  Running, Character, Cameras

  Interview with Chloe Veltman, www.believermag.com. March/April 2009.

• The problem with the British film industry is the nervousness and insecurity about - and genuflection toward - Los Angeles.

  Mike Leigh

  Insecurity, Problem, Film

  Interview with Chloe Veltman, www.believermag.com. March/April 2009.

• A lot of the reasons that I'm resistant to making films in the U.S. have nothing to do with not doing a film in Hollywood, but rather to do with what I'm committed to working on in the U.K. I feel very committed to the British film industry and infrastructure.

  Mike Leigh

  Hollywood, Film, Reason

  Interview with Chloe Veltman, www.believermag.com. March/April 2009.

• There is a great tradition of independent filmmaking in the U.S. that I absolutely respect. There's some wonderful stuff that comes out in this country against all the odds.

  Mike Leigh

  Country, Independent, Odds

  Interview with Chloe Veltman, www.believermag.com. March/April 2009.

• Independent filmmaking has always been there and it's not to be forgotten.

  Mike Leigh

  Independent, Independent Filmmaking, Forgotten

  Interview with Chloe Veltman, www.believermag.com. March/April 2009.

• I am very happy to be part of European and world cinema as a British filmmaker.

  Mike Leigh

  Cinema, World, British

  Interview with Chloe Veltman, www.believermag.com. March/April 2009.

• Some of my favorite movies are Hollywood movies. Hollywood is part of the cinematic spectrum. I nurture a healthy love-hate relationship with Hollywood.

  Mike Leigh

  Hate, Healthy, Hollywood

  Interview with Chloe Veltman, www.believermag.com. March/April 2009.

• One of the reasons the whole Hollywood way of making films wouldn't work for me is because the way I operate would be anathema to anyone who wants to hold a job down in Beverly Hills.

  Mike Leigh

  Jobs, Beverly Hills, Hollywood

  Interview with Chloe Veltman, www.believermag.com. March/April 2009.