Andrea Arnold
Whenever I get fed up with life I love to go wandering in nature.Collection: Nature
I'm sure most of us remember being a kid and you have all of this endless time where two weeks before Christmas feels like ten years. I used to go to bed to try and go to sleep to try and make it go faster.Collection: Christmas
I love insects. They are amazing.Collection: Amazing
With a lot of films, people are sitting on the outside looking in, but I want the audience to get a bit more intimately involved with what's going on, so that they maybe can experience it a little bit more intensely.
Once I've finished a film I just want to get on and make another one.
For me, making films is about trying to work something out by myself in quite a lonely way. I find the whole thing very lonely really.
I was a freestyle dancer; I wasn't trained.
I was never that comfortable in front of the camera, it always terrified me.
I'm much happier behind the camera.
I find it kind of weird that directors want to put themselves in their films.
I work best when there is adversity: I seem to get calmer the more the fur is flying.
I can't remember why or how I started writing, but I think it was always a way of making sense of the world.
I am obsessed with why people turn out the way they are.
A lot of people have something to say about 'Wuthering Heights,' but nobody quite nails it.
I want to try and be instinctive as a writer and director.
I always think that if you look at anyone in detail, you will have empathy for them because you recognize them as a human being, no matter what they've done.
People ask, 'Are your things autobiographical?,' and I think, no, they're not autobiographical directly, but of course my life has informed my work.
I grew up in a working-class family, so I guess you could say I write from what I know.
I try and be truthful.
Films are all about decisions, and that's what I love.
I was 18 when I got my first TV job.
Dramatically, I like darkness, I like conflict - but I don't see the world as defined by them.
I definitely feel sorry more people don't get to see my films. They aren't inaccessible, and if people got the chance to see them, I know they'd like them.
I don't think estates are grim places.
As long as you keep your budgets small, there's a way of making films.
I don't feel very revengeful in life at all.
We're all quite vulnerable human beings really.
Interestingly, I never thought I'd do an adaptation. I've also been quite against them. I think trying to translate one medium to another is wrong. I never really felt that books fitted into film. Generally people are disappointed, aren't they?
I wonder whether my bleak-o-meter is set differently from other people's.
My films don't give you an easy ride. I can see that. The sense I get is that people have quite a physical experience with them. They feel afterwards that they've really been through something.
I don't read reviews.
I don't want to think too much about me.
Sometimes when you're going fast, your instincts can be very useful.
Obviously when you cast someone who hasn't acted before it can be a massive opportunity for them.
Usually, I make such small-budget films that I can't afford to buy weather.
I normally go with the flow.
I've got no education.
I've not used a score in any of my films so far.
I'm fascinated with what an audience will take away from an image.
I don't think you can question your instinct; you should always trust it.
I always get quite close to my script because I work quite hard on them.
I never write with an actor in mind - never.
I just like doing things from my own head.
You learn on every film so much.
Every time I start a film I feel like I'm starting the first time, ever.
I hear filmmakers saying, 'I wanted to make to make a film about this issue, or this theme,' but I never start like that.
I do believe some people can naturally act and don't know it.
I deliberately never read about films before I see them.
When your characters are really living they tell you what they do.Collection: Character
I wonder whether my bleak-o-meter is set differently from other people's. I have such passion for what I do that I can't see it as bleak. When people use that word, or “grim” or “gritty,” I just think, “Oh, come on, look a bit deeper.” My films don't give you an easy ride. I can see that. The sense I get is that people have quite a physical experience with them. They feel afterwards that they've really been through something.Collection: Passion