Lenny Abrahamson Quotes
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I remember as a kid being asked if I was Jewish or Irish. I said, like the glib little 15-year-old I was, 'You can be both.' Feeling very pleased with myself. Before they smacked me.
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Shooting 'Adam & Paul' was very tough. There was barely enough time, and the budget was tiny. On top of that, we shot in dangerous locations where we had little or no control or security.
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I'm interested in discontinuities and interruptions, people having to rewrite the narrative of their lives because of sudden changes.
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I came from a classic, literate, intellectual Jewish family.
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The most conventional romantic trope of all is that you put lovers under extreme pressure, where they have to make decisions that illuminate aspects of that bond.
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It's something I've noticed with my two children - children frequently know and don't know at the same time. They are aware of aspects of the world that are a little bit shadowy, and they choose not to engage with them.
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As with any actor and any collaborator, it's about forming a trusting relationship. And that's not that you have to get him to trust you so you can get him to do what you want. Especially with a little kid, it's about making them feel really safe, and getting to know and not treating them as a puppet to be moved around.
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I started to make some commercials, which was a way for me to finally make a living at last. But it was only really a couple of films in that it looked like a viable career option.
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I think that I must be the only person who left California and headed to Dublin in pursuit of a career in film. The arrow is pointing in the other direction in most people's minds.
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For me, I always think of the image of sweeping out my footprints as I walk through a scene.
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When we say 'cinematic', we tend to think John Ford and vistas and wide-open spaces. Or we think of kinetic camera movement or of a certain number of cinematic styles, like film noir.
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As soon as you make some films that people like, you'll be sent material, and that can come from anywhere.
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I'm fascinated by people who have to reinvent themselves. I did it a few times - I was going to be a physicist before I was passionate about philosophy - and I realized that one more change, and I'm going to start looking like a dilettante.
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I've been in rooms where people are discussing films that have yet to come out and saying delightedly, 'Oh, I've heard it's a disaster!' The jealousy is unseemly.
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When you're shooting, there's terrible pressure, and you never switch off. Every day is like the day before an exam; it's relentless.
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Although I was really interested in physics, I think I wanted to do it because I thought it was really hard. I did theoretical physics.
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I was interested in the narrative of how we nurture our elite in this society: all that stuff about believing in yourself and not accepting second best. Our inner world is at odds with that.
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I'm not an academic type in term of personality. I had my share of madness as a teenager.
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It's very important to have a good relationship with the crew and cast because you want to get the best out of them. They'll work really hard for you if they like you.
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The process of shooting - of choosing shots - is intuitive for me, and I just feel my way towards what seems right.
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I went to Poland for the Warsaw Film Festival, and it was quite an intense experience. I didn't think it would be, but it did feel quite emotional to go back to this place I'd heard so much about.
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I can just remember being broke, wondering if I had any talent - really wondering whether this was all a fantasy - but I had to get out there and keep trying.
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I did go to cheder and was a bar mitzvah. We were members of an Orthodox synagogue, although we were not religious. My grandfather was Polish. He came to Ireland in the '30s.
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Most of my work has been independent movies outside the mainstream system.