Ridley Scott Quotes

1. Life isn't black and white. It's a million gray areas, don't you find?

2. Good FBI officers are not noticeable. You would never look at them.

3. Blade Runner appears regularly, two or three times a year in various shapes and forms of science fiction. It set the pace for what is essentially urban science fiction, urban future and it's why I've never re-visited that area because I feel I've done it.

4. And anyway, it's only movies. To stop me I think they'll have to shoot me in the head.

5. A hit for me is if I enjoy the movie, if I personally enjoy the movie.

6. And I maintain good relationships with all the studios so I've never been bullied into any cut, frankly.

7. But Gladiator is one of my favourite adventures because I really loved going into the world. I loved creating the world to the degree where you could almost smell it.

8. Cast is everything. 

9. Do what you haven't done is the key, I think.

10. I do a pretty good job at casting actually.

11. Digital is a different world because you are sitting at home and a hi tech piece of equipment today is within reach of most people, so they are watching a pretty hi tech version of whatever you've done.

12. I don't ever blink, honestly. 

13. I get so used to working with writers that my prime occupation is development.

14. I knew exactly what to do on Alien, it was funny.

15. I think if I'm going to do a science fiction, I'm going to go down a new path that I want to do.

16. I think one of the successes of Gladiator is how we manage to turn on a dime the character from one thing to another where you believe he is one thing and he is something very different.

17. I watched Someone to Watch Over Me the other night. I thought it was a really good movie. It's a great movie.

18. I was always amazed about how much I could finally squeeze into a thirty second commercial.

19. If I have to, I'll go and direct theater and talk till the cows come home.

20. It's everything and I always make decisions about the cast.

21. MPC, Moving Picture Company, they're really excellent, they did the majority of the effects.

22. My career seems to be a career of non-specific subjects which are all over the place.

23. People say I pay too much attention to the look of a movie but for God's sake, I'm not producing a Radio 4 Play for Today, I'm making a movie that people are going to look at.

24. Politics is very interesting and always leads to conflict.

25. Same thing with film, by the time you've finished shooting and you've really been into everything, you've touched up everything in the editing room. You've gone in there and taken little bits from everything.

26. Some people like to do everything always the same thing. That's another way: To do the same thing.

27. That's part of the policy: To keep switching gears.

28. What you do, is you gradually become more and more experienced, and more and more realistic about dramatic tolerance, i.e. about how long the play should be.

29. When you're doing a big movie, you're gone for 10 months to a year.

30. Yes, obviously, there's this degree of wanting people to accept other people faiths and philosophies.

31. (On why his movies don't have sex scenes) Sex is boring unless you're doing it.

32. I'm a moviemaker, not a documentarian. I try to hit the truth.

33. A friend of mine says: "Art's like a shark. You've got to keep swimming, or else you drown." Keep bouncing around. People always ask me: "What's the plan?" There is no plan. I go to what fascinates me next.

34. When I first said I wanted to make a film about Rome and cast Russell Crowe, everyone had a good old snigger. I thought: "You wait." They've done the same with Kingdom of Heaven (2005) and Orlando Bloom. I now say: "Take a look at this".

35. Audiences are less intrigued, honestly, by battle. They're more intrigued by human relations. If you're making a film about the trappings of the period, and you're forgetting that human relationships are the most engaging part of the storytelling process, then you're in trouble.

36. The digital and theatrical markets are two different marketplaces. I think the digital marketplace - thank God for it! - is like having a book on the shelf: so you can actually go to that book and if it's four hours long, you can put it on pause, you can have a beer - no one's counting.

37. The fundamental of anything as a director is material, material, material - script, script, script - once you have the script everything else is straightforward.

38. I think it's remarkable that people will give you $10 million to go and get your rocks off.

39. Never let yourself be seen in public unless they pay for it.

40. I'm not criticizing Hollywood because I work there, I partly live there. But I'm saying this is the way it is, commerce is taking over art. Commerce has become the most important thing in the film industry. Hollywood is an industry, it's not an art form, therefore they have to address the bottom line. But in a way it's sad when you get a remake, isn't it?

41. When I meet an actor that I think is going to be possible is from the second he walks through the door, because it's a visual medium.

42. (October 2006) (William Monahan) is maybe one of the two best writers I have ever worked with and I am developing something with him now that will take us back to Muslim countries next year. It's called "Tripoli", is set in 1805 and is about the bad behavior of Pasha of Tripoli, who was kidnapping ships, particularly American ships, and demanding ransoms while Jefferson was broke, having emptied his coffers of $11 million to complete the Louisiana Purchase from Napoleon, who needed the money to feed his army. It is a fascinating period.

43. I think I have less patience, mainly because I'm so experienced. Because I'm so experienced I need the very best people around me. Because people say: "Well you don't need a terribly good camera" or, "You can go and do this," and I say: "No, no, no, no, you don't understand. I want the Earth. And I want the Earth in 10 minutes."

44. The person that probably stopped me in my tracks as a child - because I used to love to go to the cinema - was David Lean with Great Expectations (1946). I thought everything was somehow better than most of the other movies in terms of the way it looked - the way it was dramatized and the way it was photographed. In fact he was detailed from corner to corner and that is what I picked up with John Ford and then Kurosawa (Akira Kurosawa) - then Carol Reed, Michael Powell - those were all the fundamental characters at that time - and Orson Welles of course. There are Frenchmen too of course who will be remembered as well but I wasn't open to the French cinema at that point - so it was American and English film directors - so those were the influences.

45. (August 2005) We're suffering from saturation, overkill. The marketplace is flooded by demand, and there are too many films, so everything gets watered down. Demand is the boss and everything bends to that will. Bigger and not necessarily better shows seem to be the order of the day. I can't watch most of them.

46. You can't stand there wringing your hands, you have to deal with how you are going to fix it. Everything has to come from a positive stance.

47. I think one of the successes of Gladiator is how we manage to turn on a dime the character from one thing to another where you believe he is one thing and he is something very different.

48. I think movies are getting dumber, actually. Where it used to be 50/50, now it's 3% good, 97% stupid.

49. Balian (Orlando Bloom's character in Kingdom of Heaven (2005)) is an agnostic, just like me. I am not fighting another holy war here, I am trying to get across the fact that not everyone in the West is a good guy, and not all Muslims are bad. The tragedy is that we still have a lack of understanding between us, and it is 900 years since the Crusades. We have never truly resolved our differences.

50. I think Russell (Crowe) did brilliantly in "A Good Year". He and I loved that film and Fox loved it and then they didn't know what to do and we got beaten up. Russell got beaten up mercilessly, which I thought was disgraceful because I genuinely thought we had done a good movie about a man in transition which is also quite funny. And what's really irritating and annoying is that I kept getting told later by actors, journalists, people outside of the industry, how much they enjoyed it. So anyway, f... 'em. It was a good film.

51. I used to agonize over what to do next, but now I make a movie a year.

52. (on recreation of the trench sequence in "Paths of Glory"): Yes, I made this...this was in the 60s with the BBC. Of course it was never aired, Kubrick would sue me, but I've always had tremendous respect for him.

53. "Avatar", when you think about it, is almost a completely animated movie.

54. (on "Prometheus") When the first "Alien" movie and "Blade Runner" were made. I thought that in the near future the world would be owned by large companies. That's why we have the Tyrell Corporation in "Blade Runner" and Weyland-Yutani in "Alien". They sent the Nostromo spaceship. The Prometheus is owned by an entrepreneur called Peter Weyland, who is played by Guy Pearce. That's the connection between the two films, and nothing more.

55. (On the source novel of "Blade Runner", Philip K. Dick's "Do Androids Dream of Electric Sheep?) It almost bears no relation at all. I met with Philip and he was angry, because I told him I couldn't get through the book. I thought I'd better repair this, so I invited him to see rushes and he was absolutely stunned by them.

56. (On "Blade Runner") I'm curious about doing a sequel. There's something in the android that lived.

57. (On Blade Runner - The Final Cut) Like watching the film as it should have been 25 years ago in the theatres but with a better sound mix.

58. (On "Blade Runner") I've never spent so much time with a writer. That was the real evolution of the story.

59. I'm a yarnteller. My job is to engage you as much as I can and as often as I can. I love the process and still continue to adore the process, actually. I don't get attached to anything. I'm like a good antique dealer. I'm prepared to sell my most valuable table.

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