Mike Leigh Quotes

Mike Leigh — British Director born on February 20, 1943,

Mike Leigh OBE is an English writer and director of film and theatre. He studied theatre at the Royal Academy of Dramatic Art and further at the Camberwell School of Art and the Central School of Art and Design. He began as a theatre director and playwright in the mid-1960s. In the 1970s and 1980s his career moved between theatre work and making films for BBC Television, many of which were characterised by a gritty "kitchen sink realism" style. His well-known films include the comedy-dramas Life is Sweet and Career Girls, the Gilbert and Sullivan biographical film Topsy-Turvy, and the bleak working-class drama All or Nothing. His most notable works are the black comedy-drama Naked, for which he won the Best Director Award at Cannes, the Oscar-nominated, BAFTA and Palme d'Or-winning drama Secrets & Lies and the Golden Lion winning working-class drama Vera Drake. Some of his notable stage plays include Smelling A Rat, It's A Great Big Shame, Greek Tragedy, Goose-Pimples, Ecstasy, and Abigail's Party... (wikipedia)

I'm old enough to have friends and contemporaries who have long since retired, and that's their prerogative - enough is enough; it doesn't mean a thing to me. But I haven't got any money, so, you know, I just keep on working.

I think it's important that nobody forgets that although Hollywood commercially dominates the world cinema, in fact what comes out of the filmmaking here is only a tiny slice out of the massive amount of operation that goes on around the world.

Given the choice of Hollywood or poking steel pins in my eyes, I'd prefer steel pins.

Film-makers should remain true to their principles and never compromise, there is a real revival in the British film industry but there is a danger that we will become colonial servants of Hollywood. We need to maintain our own integrity.

My work requires acting at its most committed - it demands actors of enormous resilience, but also intelligence and wit. It doesn't work for narcissistic or selfish actors.

Mike Leigh Quotes

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