Quote

I love the idea of people being themselves in films.

Neill Blomkamp

Change background

T
T
T

Change font

TAGS & TOPICS

Neill Blomkamp
Age: 45
Born: 1979
Born: September 17
Animator
Film Director
Screenwriter
Johannesburg
Gauteng
South Africa
Film
Ideas
Love
People
Films
Idea

More quotes by Neill Blomkamp

Image
If you just compare South Africans to the rest of the world, I think that white South Africans, and especially English-speaking white South Africans, are exactly the same as Brits or Australians or New Zealanders or Canadians or Americans.
Neill Blomkamp
Image
'District 9' was a singular anti-Apartheid metaphor, and 'Elysium' is a more general metaphor about immigration and how the First World and Third World meet. But the thing that I like the most about the metaphor is that it can be scaled to suit almost any scenario.
Neill Blomkamp
Image
There are loads of sociopolitical, racial, class and future-planet situations that really interest me, but I'm not really interested in making a film about them in a film that feels like reality because people view that in a different way. I like using science fiction to talk about subjects through the veneer of science fiction.
Neill Blomkamp
Image
If you don't have something that glues the audience to the screen, you're in trouble.
Neill Blomkamp
Image
I think that in the realm of commercial, popcorn cinema, the amount of message or smuggling of ideas you can get in there is quite limited. Like, if you think you're going to make a difference or change anything, you're on pretty dangerous thin ice.
Neill Blomkamp
Image
Johannesburg is weird, because half of it is like Los Angeles. It feels like just wealthy parts of L.A. But half of it is severe slummy, something like Rio De Janiero or something. So it's kind of weird, because it's both happening at the same time.
Neill Blomkamp
Image
I think naturally I'm a very visual kind of person. If I wasn't in filmmaking, I'd be in something related to visuals. And I used to actually work as a visual-effects artist.
Neill Blomkamp
Image
This whole notion that the robot has to declare nuclear war is one part of the discussion, but it may not be reality. Reality is, maybe it can empathize to a far greater degree than we can and experience a way wider range of emotions. So, why not have a robot that can do that?
Neill Blomkamp
Image
You can build a brain the size of a room, theoretically. You could also build a silicone based life form and it could be sentient. There's no limit to the height that you can reach in terms of design once we figure out how to design things, theoretically.
Neill Blomkamp
Image
I never think of things rationally or intellectually. I swear, every single decision I make is just instinct and my instincts tend to be accurate.
Neill Blomkamp
Image
If something is as smart as you, do you treat it differently if it isn't a human?
Neill Blomkamp
Image
I am a firm believer that the pull for human beings is towards the good, generally outweighing the bad.
Neill Blomkamp
Image
There's no question that how Johannesburg operates is what made me interested in the idea of wealth discrepancy. 'Elysium' could be a metaphor for just Jo'burg, but it's also a metaphor for the Third World and the First World. And in science fiction, separation of wealth is a really interesting idea to mess with.
Neill Blomkamp
Image
I don't believe in director's cuts and I also don't really believe in deleted scenes because the movie that is in theaters, that's what the director made.
Neill Blomkamp
Image
If you look at the most meaningful science fiction, it didn't come from watching other films. We seem to be in a place now where filmmakers make films based on other films because that's where the stimuli and influence comes from.
Neill Blomkamp
Image
I don't want to make a film that offends people, but the whole world is so politically correct - I'm not going to not do something because it may be politically incorrect. At some point, the metaphors and allegories break down. They disappear, and you just have science fiction.
Neill Blomkamp
Image
High-level actors can be all about their close-ups and the size of their trailers. I'd heard these horror stories of how a really powerful actor can come in and change your script.
Neill Blomkamp
Image
The fact that natural selection and evolution crafted essentially carbon and water into a mechanism that can think and be conscious means there's nothing in physics that says you cannot do that to a greater degree.
Neill Blomkamp
Image
Deleted scenes are like in a middle gray zone. It's like, well, they're deleted because they're not good or you lost the battle and you couldn't put them in the movie.
Neill Blomkamp
Image
I actually think Johannesburg represents the future. My version of what I think the world is going to become looks like Johannesburg.
Neill Blomkamp