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I categorically resist this idea that films are supposed to be autobiographical and the only stories you tell are about your own life.

Stephen Daldry

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Stephen Daldry
Age: 63
Born: 1961
Born: May 2
Director
Film Director
Film Producer
Theatrical Director
Dorsetshire
Stephen David Daldry
Film
Stories
Categorically
Ideas
Autobiographical
Life
Resist
Supposed
Films
Idea
Tell

More quotes by Stephen Daldry

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I think it's absolutely fascinating that in Berlin the parliament can discuss actively the role of their soldiers in Afghanistan because is it still possible, literally, for a German soldier to take up arms.
Stephen Daldry
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I would love to do something for TV... I wanna do 'Kavalier & Clay' on HBO as an eight-parter. It'll be so much better as a series, honestly.
Stephen Daldry
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Actually, to be honest, this is a useful time to not be knowing what I'll be doing in 2013 or 2014, because really, for the last however many years, I've known what I've been doing for years and years ahead. You get into a cycle of non-reflection, and that gets a bit scary.
Stephen Daldry
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When I got married, my mother was very surprised. She said: What on earth is going on? I thought you were gay?
Stephen Daldry
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In issues of recent ethnic wars and genocides - particularly if you look at Darfur - one of the most remarkable things is our inability to act, still, despite the years of analyzing and re-analyzing what it does to subsequent generations. We still find a massive inability to step in and step up to the plate, when genocide is happening as we speak.
Stephen Daldry
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I am, in fact, Superman. Every morning I wake up and go into a telephone booth and change my costume, and then go to work.
Stephen Daldry
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You [as an actor] have a responsibility to Jonathan's book and you have a responsibility to talk about a subject that is going to be, whether it's contentious or not, it's going t bring up a huge, emotional response from people. A lot of people will say they are ready or they're not ready.
Stephen Daldry
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I always say, 'I really need to take a break.' It's three days in and I'm getting pretty bored.
Stephen Daldry
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I love test screenings. Some directors don't, I know. But I love it. I think it's because I come from the theatre and in the theatre, previews are where you really have to listen to the audience and really feel how they're responding. I found our test screenings incredibly useful.
Stephen Daldry
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I'm a theatre person, that's who I am. I'm happy to make sojourns into the world of movies but I'm basically a theatre director that potters off and does a couple of movies.
Stephen Daldry
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I spent a little time in Germany as a schoolboy learning German, and it's a country I knew very well, spent a lot of time in. I knew the history very well. I've always wanted to do a piece of work about the post-war period, of one sort or another.
Stephen Daldry
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There has been one defining production for me in each decade.
Stephen Daldry
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I'm not really a director for hire. You read these scripts and go, 'This is a really great script, but Paul Greengrass would make this so much better than me.' I usually say, 'I know who would be good for this. It's not me.
Stephen Daldry
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At school, I decided I wanted to be a director and then I went out and spent the rest of my adult life trying to be a director. It was really clear to me. So in that sense I was very lucky.
Stephen Daldry
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There are a few writers that one has a relationship with that means, basically, you do whatever they say. One is Caryl Churchill, and the other is David Hare.
Stephen Daldry
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Every now and then I have to teach directing. The thing about the theatre is that the most important thing you can do as a director is to make sure that everybody is in the same world - you have to create the world and make sure everyone buys into it.
Stephen Daldry
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It's disingenuous to say that criticism doesn't get to you or you don't hear it or that you ignore it. When everybody says, 'That's crap. I hated that,' you hear it. But it's much, much worse when they're right: when you feel that it is an absolute piece of tosh. I made the film I wanted to make, so you just have to find a way of getting over it.
Stephen Daldry
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Well, there are three different processes of making a film, of course. They're sort of re-written three times. You write it to start with, and then you shoot it and you re-write it while shooting and you sort of re-write it as you edit.
Stephen Daldry
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With journalism, films always have to be to do with some personal statement of your own. As a general rule, I resist that. In the States, a question that kept coming up was this: how can you, as a man, talk about three women?
Stephen Daldry
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They're a redefinition of boredom... the most important thing you need to know about an awards show is where is the nearest smoking opportunity.
Stephen Daldry