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Mike Leigh [1943-0] British

Rank: 105
Director, Writer

Mike Leigh OBE is an English writer and director of film and theatre. He studied at the Royal Academy of Dramatic Art before honing his directing skills at East 15 Acting School and further at the Camberwell School of Art and the Central School of Art and Design.

Intelligence, Poetry, Relationship

Quote	Tags	Rank
I'm old enough to have friends and contemporaries who have long since retired, and that's their prerogative - enough is enough; it doesn't mean a thing to me. But I haven't got any money, so, you know, I just keep on working.		101
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.	Intelligence	102
The whole thing about making films in an organic film on location is that it's not all about characters, relationships and themes, it's also about place and the poetry of place. It's about the spirit of what you find, the accidents of what you stumble across.	Poetry	103
I think it's important that nobody forgets that although Hollywood commercially dominates the world cinema, in fact what comes out of the filmmaking here is only a tiny slice out of the massive amount of operation that goes on around the world.		104
Given the choice of Hollywood or poking steel pins in my eyes, I'd prefer steel pins.		105
My work is about life as you and I experience it. You're either lucky or you're not lucky; either your relationship works or it doesn't.	Relationship	106
I mean, artistic processes are all about making choices all the time, and the very act of making a choice is the distilling down and the getting to the core of what it is that you care about and what you want to say, really.		107
I try and create for the audience something that relates to real-life experience.		108
There's a constant drip and trickle of life that goes into one's awareness really and consciousness of things.		109
Film-makers should remain true to their principles and never compromise, there is a real revival in the British film industry but there is a danger that we will become colonial servants of Hollywood. We need to maintain our own integrity.		110
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.		111
The good thing from my perspective is that nobody puts any pressure on me to say what it's going to be. The backers accept that they don't know what they are going to get.		112
It creeps up on you and becomes an obsession. It comes out of watching a million movies.		113
I've long since stopped worrying about how I'm portrayed in the press because ultimately it's not that important. Everyone who knows me knows I do what I do with the greatest integrity.		114
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.		115
Given the events of even the 19th century, Zionism was inevitable. Given the events of the 20th century, Israel was inevitable.		116
It's an unhealthy habit to say that life is what you make of it, and if you want to be happy, then you can be happy. That's just rubbish, basically.		117
But actually I make films that I think are extremely sophisticated and cinematic.		118
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.		119
But films should be voyeuristic. What else is a film if you're not snooping into somebody else's lives?		120
I'm developing the stuff all the time. There's a film in my head. I'm imagining a film.		121
I think Michael Caine is a perfectly good actor but it's obvious he's not going to be in one of my films.		122
I've walked out of films. But for every film I've ever walked out of, I've probably walked out of 500 plays.		123
I feel very much ideologically, politically if you like, and emotionally part of the European cinema.		124

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