Marianne Elliott Quotes
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It's predominantly a male society, predominately a male culture, predominantly a male theatre, and predominantly male critics, but that's changing, definitely.
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I'm quite unusual in directing terms: I'm a woman. I'm quite a girly girl. I was never academic.
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My dad had a big influence on me, and although I was never very bright at school, I used to love philosophising with him about big universal things - and I think that's what directing is.
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There's a certain type of theatre that I haven't got any time for at all - established, boring, same-old stuff without any reason or passion. There's quite a lot of it about, and it motivates me to try to do something different, something risky, raw, ugly, and challenging.
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I hope for continued bravery and risk-taking for all theatremakers in 2018 and beyond.
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If it is just another run-of-the-mill show, then what is the point?
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'Friends' is easy to dismiss, but it's really good television - the art with which those actors play with comedy shouldn't be denigrated. And they also know how to play irony, which I think a lot of English actors might find quite difficult.
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I'm drawn to female stories, of which there aren't that many, and particularly to stories now about older women. The things they have to confront and override is really fascinating. That's a whole untold part of our world.
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The plays I choose to work on are about having masks. We all have masks in life, but there is a different inner life going on. The audience has to work hard to see what is going on. I love what is not on display.
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The actors work out how to create the show with me during the rehearsals. They owe it to themselves and each other to maintain that contract regardless of what the critics say.
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I suppose what's so amazing about working at the National Theatre is that, because it's a subsidized theatre, you're not trying to create a product that's going to have a mass market in order to make the money back.
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I think theater is so undervalued. I have seen things there that have been far more vivid than things that actually have happened.
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Some directors have the gift of the gab, but I don't.
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My generation feels it has been lied to a great deal.
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I had done drama at university, but I never thought I could be a director. There were so few female directors then. I just assumed you had to be a man to be a director. I also assumed you had to be extremely authoritarian and extremely intellectual, none of which I was.
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I've seen many shows ruined by bad reviews and good reviews, so I always tell my actors not to read the reviews until after the run is over.
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You need to see yourself in what you direct, I think - directing is quite self-indulgent from that point of view.
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With everything I do, there always seems to be a massive risk involved.
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I hope that subsidised theatres continue to be rewarded for the wonder of talent they provide to this industry, on stage and off.
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I used to love getting older.
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When I was a kid, I never spoke. I would sit under a table and not speak to anybody. No words for years.
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I suppose I always find a lot of characters that are deeply, deeply keening with a sense of yearning and desire through sadness, but they have a bravery that keeps them going despite that.
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The less subsidy we have, the more the 'producers' take over, and the 'bottom line' becomes the raison d'etre. That's quite an unappealing landscape for artists.
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As you get older, you realise that your identity becomes more important - the environment in which you have grown is actually part of who you are just as much as your family or your school.