Sam Mendes Quotes (67 Quotes)

You're in the lap of the gods. If people go, they go, and if they don't.

All I know is that I operate by going out to each of them and trying to learn the territory in which they operate. My language to each of them has to suit their brain.

Everything about that war seemed so far away, ... The media never really was allowed in. All you'd see were these tiny little bombs like they were hitting toy towns. There was no sense that this was actually a war, that there was a human toll.

I'd like to think there's a huge interest out there because it's part of our daily life.

Just because I hold a shot for more than five seconds and it's all a deliberate tableau, people say it's theater. It's not really.

Violence is something that's very deliberately chosen - who sees it, the effect it has on the person watching, and the person performing the act of violence is more important than the violence itself. It's not about a gore-fest or how much blood you can show.

This is the first time in 10 years I don't know what I'm doing next, and I'm rather enjoying it. Soon I'll be climbing the walls no doubt, but right now, it's not clear, I'm just enjoying the freedom.

You freeze with the number of opportunities given to you and just decide to do nothing at all.

One movie is only one movie. I want to have a lifetime of making films.

I think with Blair Witch and The Sixth Sense, people are much more open to something that is different.

Now I'm back home, living in London, running my theater. I just want to enjoy all that.

As a first-time director in America, I feel I've been very fortunate.

You just never know when movies are going to take off or not. The lucky thing about this was that it didn't cost a lot of money, and therefore there wasn't loads of pressure on me.

I don't think good and evil are polarized.

In terms of being an outsider in America and having a certain type of objectivity to a degree, there were a few times I thought to myself What on earth am I doing here I'm a Brit making a movie so firmly set in the States

You've got to believe as a filmmaker that if a movie's good enough, it's going to survive; and if it's not, well, it won't.

It's a risk casting anyone against type or what they're known to do. But there's one thing better than having a great actor, which is having a great actor who's never done what you're asking him to do. He's hungry to get out of the trailer every day and hungry to test himself.