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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
Time
Choice
Choices
Getting
Making
Process
Distilling
Care
Processes
Mean
Artistic
Really
Core

More quotes by Mike Leigh

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There's a constant drip and trickle of life that goes into one's awareness really and consciousness of things.
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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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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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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Some deeply untrusting actors - the kind that need to know exactly what's what and are completely insecure - might be quite good within the parameters of a certain sort of acting.
Mike Leigh
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I can't negotiate and collaborate with a character to create a distilled dramatic investigation of the raw material. I need to work with an actor. That stuff about actors who stay in character all the time is nonsense.
Mike Leigh
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There have always been and there always will be the peripheral sideline activities which are a form of entertainment, which is to say you pay a couple of cents and you see something freakish. That is what reality TV is.
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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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.
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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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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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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People have been very resistant to giving me more than the standard amount of money. So I keep making films on a similar scale. Which is fine, but also frustrating.
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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When I was young I used to sit in the cinema thinking wouldn't it be great if you could have a film in which the characters were like real people instead of being like actors.
Mike Leigh
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One of the reasons the whole Hollywood way of making films wouldn't work for me is because the way I operate would be anathema to anyone who wants to hold a job down in Beverly Hills.
Mike Leigh
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I hope I make films where you walk away . . . with work to do, arguments to have, things to worry about, things to care about. In that sense, I would regard what I do as political.
Mike Leigh
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Resolve was never stronger than in the morning, after the night, when it was never weaker
Mike Leigh
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It creeps up on you and becomes an obsession. It comes out of watching a million movies.
Mike Leigh