Ridley Scott
I think one of the successes of Gladiator is how we manage to turn on a dime the character from one thing to another where you believe he is one thing and he is something very different.
I don't ever blink, honestly.
Blade Runner appears regularly, two or three times a year in various shapes and forms of science fiction. It set the pace for what is essentially urban science fiction, urban future and it's why I've never re-visited that area because I feel I've done it.
Cast is everything.
It's everything and I always make decisions about the cast.
When you're doing a big movie, you're gone for 10 months to a year.
Do what you haven't done is the key, I think.
Some people like to do everything always the same thing. That's another way: To do the same thing.
My career seems to be a career of non-specific subjects which are all over the place.
I get so used to working with writers that my prime occupation is development.
Yes, obviously, there's this degree of wanting people to accept other people faiths and philosophies.
If you believe, you believe; if you're faithful, you're faithful. I don't care what your religion is. The same if you're agnostic. That should be accepted, too.
I started late. I didn't make my first movie until I was 40.
The ego is there, but I'm learning to channel it.
I try to make films, not movies. I've never liked the expression 'movie', but it sounds elitist to say that.
People have no idea how physically tough doing a film is.
I was always aware that this whole Earth is on overload.
There's some politicians who still seriously believe that we haven't got global warming.
'Alien' is a C film elevated to an A film, honestly, by it being well done and a great monster. If it hadn't had that great monster, even with a wonderful cast, it wouldn't have been as good, I don't think.
There's still a lot of investors wondering what to invest in. And, of course, I think entertainment looks attractive when you read the few films that make these insane amounts of money. What they don't know is they don't always do that.
Doing science fiction at a high level is tricky. It's really tricky.
I think sci-fi can easily be PG.
It's hard writing screenplays.
Egypt was - as it is now - a confluence of cultures, as a result of being a crossroads geographically between Africa, the Middle East and Europe.
When I started the original 'Alien,' Ripley wasn't a woman, it was a guy.
I've always avoided sequels, unless I felt there was something fresh.
Fire is our first form of technology.
I am a science fiction enthusiast, really, deep down.
I think Phil Dick was particularly interesting in that, first of all, he was a very modern man and a very modern thinker, but I don't know what demons drove him.
I am in a constant stage of development.
There's a big film industry in Egypt, and quite a big one in Syria, and there's a big Muslim community in Paris.
'Blade Runner' was a comic strip. It was a comic strip! It was a very dark comic strip. Comic metaphorically.
Churchill strikes a note in my life because my father worked on Mulberry Harbour, which was the code name for the temporary concrete harbours which were towed across the Channel to make the D-day landings in France possible.
On rare occasions, Dad used to reminisce about when he met Eisenhower and how Churchill would pop in, in the late hours of the evening or night, carrying a cigar, when he'd obviously had a good dinner.
I've seen some of James Cameron's work, and I've got to go 3D.
I don't go to the cinema often anymore - I'd rather just pop in a disk and get the biggest monitor you've got, and if the quality is superb, I can watch a film, and if I don't like it I can pop it out.
I tend to watch a lot of lower-budget movies to find out what's doing down there and find out who's coming up.
Perhaps because of my background as a graphic designer, I'm drawn to rich and beautiful colors.
As a filmmaker, deep blacks are essential, and in my experience, no technology captures those attributes as well as Plasma.
You always worry before your movie opens that no one is going to come out.
'Prometheus' was a great experience for me.
The best stories come out of the truth.
When you're watching a documentary, the danger is to romanticize.
I'm an Englishman who did a film on Mogadishu, 'Black Hawk Down.'
Dad entered the Second World War like any other man, trying to do the right thing.
I grew up in the North of England at a time when Stirling Moss was a hero. Everyone wanted to be a racing driver.
'The Man In High Castle' is one of Dick's most imaginative and captivating works, and certainly one of my favorites.
Conscience, the power of conscience, can unearth all kinds of things.
Technology continues to bring us wondrous advances in filmmaking to improve how we view movies.