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. Mike Leigh Read Quote
I’m developing the stuff all the time. There’s a film in my head. I’m imagining a film. Mike Leigh Read Quote
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. Mike Leigh Read Quote
I feel very much ideologically, politically if you like, and emotionally part of the European cinema. Mike Leigh Read Quote
But films should be voyeuristic. What else is a film if you’re not snooping into somebody else’s lives? Mike Leigh Read Quote
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 Read Quote
There are plenty of bad actors and there are plenty of bad directors. There are actors who will always be bad and there are good actors who you cry for because they’re being badly directed or the material isn’t good enough. Mike Leigh Read Quote
You will find hardly any improvising on camera anywhere in my films. It’s very structured, but it’s all worked out from elaborate improvisations over a long period, as you know. Mike Leigh Read Quote
My work is about life as you and I experience it. You’re either lucky or you’re not lucky; either your relationship works or it doesn’t. Mike Leigh Read Quote
I try and create for the audience something that relates to real-life experience. Mike Leigh Read Quote
