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I admit there’s an element of brutality in all my work - it’s part of the truth about human existence I always want to explore - but the last thing I’m trying to do is put on some kind of freak show, inviting people to get off on other people’s pain and humiliation.

Todd Solondz

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Todd Solondz
Age: 65
Born: 1959
Born: October 15
Actor
Film Actor
Film Director
Film Producer
Filmmaker
Screenwriter
Newark
New Jersey
Kind
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Admit
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Human
Existence
Inviting
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More quotes by Todd Solondz

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When I'm asked who my audience is, I say someone with an open mind, which is not a vacant one and sometimes a liberal mind is not the same thing as an open one.
Todd Solondz
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When I want to show the kind of meanness people are capable of, to make it believable I find I have to tone it down. It's in real life that people are over the top.
Todd Solondz
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We say we embrace humanity, but what does that mean? We are all defined by our limits, so to what extent can we embrace all this? Because we all contain within ourselves equally the capacity for kindness, as much as for cruelty or evil. And the best of us are able to suppress those baser impulses, instincts. That's the war within.
Todd Solondz
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It is true that the movie is perhaps my most politically-charged. The story is thrust into motion by the idea of what do you do when your 13 year old daughter comes home pregnant. And not only is she pregnant, but she wants to keep the baby.
Todd Solondz
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That said, be mindful, to someone who's never seen any of my work, it's just a movie with actors. So it's only those who of course know the earlier work that will see something is afoot, so to speak. But I don't want to intellectualize.
Todd Solondz
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I mean, I don't want to sound - of course it's very nice, people come up and say appreciative things about my work. But the loss, in terms of privacy and anonymity, is no small thing to me.
Todd Solondz
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You always have to be ahead of the audience so that they have to always catch up and know the movie's not quite going exactly where you think it's going, or expecting it to be going.
Todd Solondz
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I think success is a lot more healthy than failure.
Todd Solondz
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One thing I want to say: I don't like victim stories and I don't write them.
Todd Solondz
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Usually the audience has no idea that the censored version of whatever movie they're watching isn't the original.
Todd Solondz
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Storytelling is the only studio movie where the censorship is perfectly clear, the only studio movie with a big red box covering up a shot. I take pride in that - and, of course, in having avoided the fate of Eyes Wide Shut.
Todd Solondz
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People cant help how they look.
Todd Solondz
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When part of what you're trying to get at is the truth hidden under a taboo, or when you want to nail a hypocrisy, laughter is a very useful tool. I want to show the painful side of existence, but there is no question I also want to make people laugh.
Todd Solondz
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If I grew up in a different background, I could see myself getting a gun and shooting an abortionist. That's my job, to imagine what could happen, what can make people go in different directions.
Todd Solondz
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Casting is great fun, except for the business of it. I love the casting process. I love the editing process. I love working with the music. And even prep is very exciting. But once you get there and the clock is ticking, all it is is stress.
Todd Solondz
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Some directors hardly talk to the actors at all.
Todd Solondz
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I don't make movies with the idea that people are going to walk out of them feeling comfortable or better about themselves or more secure in their own biases or opinions.
Todd Solondz
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The ability to take pleasure in one's life is a skill and is a kind of intelligence.
Todd Solondz
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A movie takes on its own life, and you have to respect that and be open to it.
Todd Solondz
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Art has a smaller audience than, say, movies or other forms of mass consumption. But that doesn't mean the work doesn't have an impact in a way that transcends just a few cultural arbiters.
Todd Solondz