Paul Haggis Quotes (30 Quotes)


    I avoided the phone this morning because this (the DGA nomination) was the one I knew I wouldn't get. When my friend called to tell me, I made him repeat the sentence three times.

    This is my first time back to the Kodak Theatre since March 5 and I couldn't be prouder to be with all of you.

    I just want to thank people who take big risks in their daily lives when there aren't cameras rolling. I want to dedicate this award to people who stand up for peace and against injustice and intolerance.


    As a general rule, I don't plan to travel with my Oscars, but we may have to make an exception.


    This is the year that Hollywood rewarded rule-breakers.

    We're trying to reinvent Bond. He's 28 - no Q, no gadgets.

    I'd only seen him as the hero or the foppish best friend - so I felt predisposed to like him. On the other hand, Granger's character is not particularly attractive at all - 1950s film heroes were supposed to be strong and confident, yet here is this rather tediously weak man, who allows himself to be pushed around by women.

    Of course I feel guilty about manipulating the audience, playing on their preconceptions in that way, ... But that's my job.

    I knew if we did it right it would get under people's skin, and they would react one way or the other. So it doesn't bother me when people say they hate it for this reason or that. It got to them, it made them look at something they would rather not have looked at, so the movie succeeded, at least for me.

    This all came from the time in the '70s when it actually snowed in Los Angeles. I figured, you know what If it can snow in Los Angeles, anything is possible. Maybe there's actually hope for us.

    None of us expected it. You hope, but we had a tiny picture...this was a year when Hollywood rewarded rule breakers.

    You can't be afraid to disagree with everybody. You have to be very comfortable.

    I like to write about things about which I have no answers, questions that trouble me. These things trouble me.

    As a filmmaker, it's a great thing to feel you've really affected them, one way or another. I'd much rather have that than have someone say, 'Nice film, man.' That's a stake through your heart.

    They're talking to three to four girls right now. Every week I read there's a new Bond girl, and I call them and they say, No, you idiot.

    None of us expected this. We had a tiny picture, and we opened at the wrong time.

    I just asked myself, what piece of that man's soul did he just chew off and swallow to get next week's assignment? You know, just to live, just to work as an artist, or to feed the family?

    We're trying to reinvent Bond. He's 28. It's very difficult to think of new ways of blowing things up. It's the journey that's the thing--finding a new journey for the character.

    The wonderful thing about Clint is you can never second guess how he is going to react to anything.

    We give you characters we'd feel very comfortable judging, and then go: 'Oh yeah? Watch this'.

    In an artfully drawn-out chase sequence - one of Haggis's personal highlights - Hitchcock pushes our mixed feelings about the central characters even further. Bruno is rushing to plant Guy's lighter at the murder scene (with Guy in hot pursuit) when he accidentally drops it down a drain. Hitchcock's camera lingers voyeuristically over him as he struggles to retrieve it. I'll never forget watching Bruno squeeze his hand down through that metal grate, ... Seeing the sweat forming on his brow, feeling his pain as the lighter remains just beyond reach.

    Unless I'm really uneasy with what I'm writing, I lose interest very quickly.

    They managed the campaign very well, getting the DVDs into the hands of the viewers, believing that the picture would sell itself. I thought that we had absolutely no shot at the Oscar, though I hoped that some of the actors would be remembered.

    We all have these tendencies in us that could go this way or that. I think that's the real key in writing. To look at a character without judgment.

    You either get the movie or you don't, and if you don't get it, it's just the dumbest movie of all time. Some people are really challenged by it. It makes them incredibly uncomfortable, I think, and they come up with various reasons why that's not their fault.

    I don't think it's the job of filmmakers to give anybody answers. I do think, though, that a good film makes you ask questions of yourself as you leave the theatre.

    I was trying to talk about where we are right now as a society, and talk about the fear we all live in, and certainly since 9-11, how it's affected us and the world.

    We were so shocked. We're still trying to figure out if we actually really got this. I don't think I had a mind when they called his film. I think it was just mush. None of us expected this. You hope.

    I was hoping to do something to twist people's point of view just a tiny bit, to make them look at things just a hair differently.


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