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After making several tragic movies in a row, I was looking to do a comedy, and one without cynicism.
Ang Lee -
Things that don't have a big impact seem to be crucial. Always when you go out to make a movie you have questions, "What if this doesn't work? What if that doesn't work?" you want to cover yourself, you want to bring back enough [footage] so you can do something.
Ang Lee
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Basically the movies I make are my life, so I choose how I want to live my life for the next two years. So that's a decision I have to make. At some point if I feel there are enough elements - it doesn't even have to have great characters or great stories - it's just elements that can get my excitement and curiosity for one or two years, then I'll jump in and I'll find out what that is. Then I have to do [interviews like this] and rationalize why I do this.
Ang Lee -
It's not a pleasure torturing actors, although some of them enjoy it.
Ang Lee -
Even the favorite reviews, the audience response is the movie is too slow, deliberately slow. But for the Chinese audience, the biggest complaint is it happens too quick. I think the historical background that build into our genes is different. American people has never been occupied. The deep sadness and sentimentality, the cultural background that relates to melodrama that we relate to and grow up with, the propaganda, I didn't imagine the difference is so big. It's a very interesting cultural phenomenon.
Ang Lee -
I have a lot of repression. So repression is what I make movies about.
Ang Lee -
First we pre-visualized it [the flying fish scene in 'Life of Pi'] so the actors could act. It took a long time to get that to come to life and to design those coming out of the screen. We had great fun with that. It takes a long time, a year maybe.
Ang Lee -
Making a martial arts film in English to me is the same as John Wayne speaking Chinese in a western.
Ang Lee
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My mother loves me and everything goes well. I have no conflict with her, so that's not dramatic.
Ang Lee -
Mostly it's like, I get inspired by something and I want to learn that part of filmmaking, I want to delve into that kind of depth. And leading, also, a lot of people. A lot of people, for two years of their life they follow me, and they believe what I believe in. So that's some responsibility and I'd like to make it worth the effort.
Ang Lee -
Everyone in the gay community doesn't think alike.
Ang Lee -
I don't think the Hulk is a superhero. He's the first Marvel character who is a tragic monster. Really an anti-hero.
Ang Lee -
I think each movie-making process is a very exhausting and satisfying and fulfilling experience for me.
Ang Lee -
To me, Ennis stands for the conservative side of America. He's the biggest homophobe in the whole movie - culturally and psychologically - but by the time he admits his feelings, it's too late.
Ang Lee
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When I see something I like, that's all that counts. What they use, how they get there, I never bother them.
Ang Lee -
In Taiwan, I'd be like Michael Jordan walking down the street.
Ang Lee -
The L.A. weather is a lot like Taiwan's, where you don't observe four seasons, so the years can pass and you don't feel a thing.
Ang Lee -
As artists, we like night more than day sometimes.
Ang Lee -
I wanted to shoot straight, mainstream, somehow off-beat. Not only realistic West, which is quite unfamiliar to the world's population - even to a lot of Americans.
Ang Lee -
I did a women's movie, and I'm not a woman. I did a gay movie, and I'm not gay. I learned as I went along.
Ang Lee
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Directing, I get all kinds of inspiration. It's working with people. It's a lot more fun.
Ang Lee -
If there's something that can be formulated, regulated, give you security, then nobody would lose money. Every movie would be successful. And that's certainly not the case.
Ang Lee -
I feel that everyone has a Hulk inside, and each of our Hulks is both scary and, potentially, pleasurable. That's the scariest thing about them.
Ang Lee -
The way I go about a lovemaking scene is that we will talk about it during the rehearsing time.
Ang Lee