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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.

Mike Leigh

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Mike Leigh
Age: 81
Born: 1943
Born: February 20
Actor
Author
Film Director
Playwright
Screenwriter
Television Director
Theatrical Director
Writer
Process
Distilling
Care
Processes
Mean
Artistic
Really
Core
Time
Choice
Choices
Getting
Making

More quotes by Mike Leigh

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Independent filmmaking has always been there and it's not to be forgotten.
Mike Leigh
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I wonder if I would have been capable of producing anything if I worked in a more conventional way with a prewritten script, because I'm of the procrastinator class.
Mike Leigh
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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.
Mike Leigh
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The kind of acting that's wholly literary or cerebral is wrong. It's useless for me to have actors so much in their heads that they can't be organic.
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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
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Given the events of even the 19th century, Zionism was inevitable. Given the events of the 20th century, Israel was inevitable.
Mike Leigh
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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
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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.
Mike Leigh
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I think the camera has got to be motivated. You can't have things arrived at gratuitously. Everything has to have an organic function, but the more comfortable I've become and the more imaginative and sophisticated and the more exploratory I've become at the medium, the more I've subtly deviated away from that in various ways.
Mike Leigh
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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
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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
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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
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If a film or any piece of work doesn't entertain, it fails - and that is using the word entertain literally, meaning it holds you there and you become absorbed by it so that you don't walk away and get bored and so on.
Mike Leigh
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I discover what my film is by embarking on the journey of making it.
Mike Leigh
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The main problem is that the Hollywood system has already made the film before the director shoots a single frame.
Mike Leigh
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I think Michael Caine is a perfectly good actor but it's obvious he's not going to be in one of my films.
Mike Leigh
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I am very happy to be part of European and world cinema as a British filmmaker.
Mike Leigh
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It's important to be true to the events, but the most important thing is to get to the essence of the experience. Not to be bogged down in an academic way by a notion of the truth. First of all, the truth is an illusive and spurious concept.
Mike Leigh
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But actually I make films that I think are extremely sophisticated and cinematic.
Mike Leigh
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Resolve was never stronger than in the morning, after the night, when it was never weaker
Mike Leigh