Sam Mendes Quotes
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I still can't quite believe it. Although there was something about the fact that it was a first-time writer, a first-time producer, and a first-time director all at the same time.
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I'm certainly getting a lot more mail... that's basically it.
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You freeze with the number of opportunities given to you and just decide to do nothing at all.
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I deliberately, in a way, went for something that was a huge challenge and was a big period film. I was excited about the canvas on which I could tell the story as much as the story itself.
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When I drive through a field, I want to see green grass sometimes, and I don't want to see black and white.
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The characters are trapped within the lifestyle. It's about what goes on before the movie starts.
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Thank God I don't live in Los Angeles. I think if you're there the whole time it just gets out of proportion and you lose touch completely with reality.
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I don't think of it as a competition - which might surprise you, given the way movies are reported constantly.
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You've got to work. You've got to want an audience to sit forward in their chairs sometimes, rather than sit back and be bombarded with images.
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It's a risk casting anyone against type or what they're known to do. But there's one thing better than having a great actor, which is having a great actor who's never done what you're asking him to do. He's hungry to get out of the trailer every day and hungry to test himself.
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I don't think good and evil are polarized.
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I want to inspire, and be inspired.
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Kevin and Annette... I wanted them to do it together. They clearly wanted to work with each other.
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Now I'm back home, living in London, running my theater. I just want to enjoy all that.
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All I know is that I operate by going out to each of them and trying to learn the territory in which they operate. My language to each of them has to suit their brain.
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I wanted to keep exploring... I'm not about to choose a series of movies in which I can use the same bag of tricks and style that I used in the first film.
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I think movies are a director's medium in the end. Theater is the actor's medium. Theater is fast, and enjoyable, and truly rewarding. I believe in great live performance.
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You think about taking audiences on a journey.
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I've made movies that cost less than one car chase.
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There's good and bad in everybody. I wasn't looking for the good, or looking for the bad. This is a man who signed his pact with the devil 20 years ago, and he's learned to live with it. He's tried to protect his family from it.
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For me, certain shots or scenes are keys in the movie.
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One movie is only one movie. I want to have a lifetime of making films.
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Shooting action is very, very meticulous, it's increments, tiny little pieces.
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The perceived wisdom is that people do not go in large numbers to black-and-white movies anymore - which is a great shame, but I'd love to make a black-and-white movie one day.