Quote

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

Change background

T
T
T

Change font

TAGS & TOPICS

Mike Leigh
Age: 81
Born: 1943
Born: February 20
Actor
Author
Film Director
Playwright
Screenwriter
Television Director
Theatrical Director
Writer
Class
Procrastinator
Anything
Producing
Way
Conventional
Would
Script
Scripts
Worked
Capable
Wonder

More quotes by Mike Leigh

Image
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.
Mike Leigh
Image
Given the events of even the 19th century, Zionism was inevitable. Given the events of the 20th century, Israel was inevitable.
Mike Leigh
Image
Independent filmmaking has always been there and it's not to be forgotten.
Mike Leigh
Image
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
Image
Given the choice of Hollywood or poking steel pins in my eyes, I'd prefer steel pins.
Mike Leigh
Image
As a general habit and general tendency, I prefer not to bog a piece down with a great number of transitory, contemporary references, because in the end, I'm concerned, not in an abstract way, but an actual way, with creating a world which has a universality to it - even though what goes on is made up of texture and detail, contemporary detail.
Mike Leigh
Image
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
Image
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.
Mike Leigh
Image
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
Image
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
Image
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
Image
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.
Mike Leigh
Image
But actually I make films that I think are extremely sophisticated and cinematic.
Mike Leigh
Image
The reason my films work is because every actor on set is very secure. They're able to fly.
Mike Leigh
Image
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
Image
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
Image
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
Image
I discover what my film is by embarking on the journey of making it.
Mike Leigh
Image
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
Image
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