But films should be voyeuristic. What else is a film if you’re not snooping into somebody else’s lives? Mike Leigh More Quotes by Mike Leigh More Quotes From Mike Leigh There are plenty of bad actors and there are plenty of bad directors. There are actors who will always be bad and there are good actors who you cry for because they're being badly directed or the material isn't good enough. Mike Leigh cry actors directors You will find hardly any improvising on camera anywhere in my films. It's very structured, but it's all worked out from elaborate improvisations over a long period, as you know. Mike Leigh cameras film long 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 luck choices Films are made all over the world all the time and only a thin slice of that product is Hollywood. Mike Leigh hollywood film world My work requires acting at its most committed - it demands actors of enormous resilience, but also intelligence and wit. It doesn't work for narcissistic or selfish actors. Mike Leigh resilience selfish acting The problem with the British film industry is the nervousness and insecurity about - and genuflection toward - Los Angeles. Mike Leigh insecurity film problem The reason my films work is because every actor on set is very secure. They're able to fly. Mike Leigh film able actors My job apart from anything else is to build an ensemble composed of actors who all come from a secure place so that they can all work together to make the film. Mike Leigh ensemble working-together jobs 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 You can't make a movie about the artist without shooting outdoors. Mike Leigh shooting artist 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 film giving people 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 character moving 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 sexy girl hate 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 life-experience stereotype trying 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 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 film character 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 abstract habit world I really think people are greatly stimulated and enriched by experiencing in film just as we can from novels and other art, experiencing things that resonate with what our lives are about. I think people really want to know... want to share, want to have the stimulus to think and care about the way they live their lives, the way they relate to other people, their aspirations, their hopes, et cetera. Mike Leigh people art thinking 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 cameras running character Independent filmmaking has always been there and it's not to be forgotten. Mike Leigh independent-filmmaking independent forgotten
