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I've long since stopped worrying about how I'm portrayed in the press because ultimately it's not that important. Everyone who knows me knows I do what I do with the greatest integrity.

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
Greatest
Portrayed
Since
Worrying
Everyone
Stopped
Important
Presses
Long
Press
Ultimately
Integrity
Worry

More quotes by Mike Leigh

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It creeps up on you and becomes an obsession. It comes out of watching a million movies.
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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.
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I am very happy to be part of European and world cinema as a British filmmaker.
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The main problem is that the Hollywood system has already made the film before the director shoots a single frame.
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I'm old enough to have friends and contemporaries who have long since retired, and that's their prerogative - enough is enough it doesn't mean a thing to me. But I haven't got any money, so, you know, I just keep on working.
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The reason my films work is because every actor on set is very secure. They're able to fly.
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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.
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Film-makers should remain true to their principles and never compromise, there is a real revival in the British film industry but there is a danger that we will become colonial servants of Hollywood. We need to maintain our own integrity.
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Very occasionally I hire an actor and get it wrong. The actor just doesn't trust the process or me as fully as I thought they would. In this case, you can be quite sure that if an actor is untrusting, it's got nothing to do with me or the process.
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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.
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Resolve was never stronger than in the morning, after the night, when it was never weaker
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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.
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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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Given the events of even the 19th century, Zionism was inevitable. Given the events of the 20th century, Israel was inevitable.
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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.
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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.
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But actually I make films that I think are extremely sophisticated and cinematic.
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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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The problem with the British film industry is the nervousness and insecurity about - and genuflection toward - Los Angeles.
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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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