Peter Mullan Quotes & Sayings (Page 4)

“When things are really painful, I turn it into comedy.”

“I'm not a huge kind of visual director. For me, it's all about the acting. There's no greater buzz than working with actors and seeing what they can do and how much they can improve on what you'd written. That will always be on the top of my list. It's a real privilege to see it live before anyone else sees it.”

“In Scotland, we're a colony in more ways than one. So when directors come up to work, there's a very particular way they want Scotland to look like and to behave like.”

“No hard guy's not scared when another hard guy's knife is coming at you. You're scared, obviously, but you've to act less scared than he is. It's who is going to act less scared.”

“The Vatican has tried to condemn 'The Magdalene Sisters' as a pack of lies and that I've made it all up - I wish I was that good a dramatist - and in terms of public relations, that was the daftest thing they ever did.”

“There's no such thing as an actor giving positive criticism to a director. The minute you say 'Don't you think it would look nicer...', that director's going to hate your guts. Particularly if it's a good idea.”

“I guess I'm part of the art house, but we really have to shake up our ideas, because we're kind of self-parodying ourselves. We go places commercial cinema doesn't go, but sometimes it's to our own detriment.”

“I hate it when something is set in 1967 and every piece of furniture was made in 1967. No! If it's set in 1967, people have furniture given to them by their grandmother, which she bought in 1932!”

“I wanted to dismantle the bollocks that there's a military structure to a gang, with a leader, second leader, the good looking one, first babe, second babe. It's far more arbitrary than that and their values shouldn't be romanticised. They aren't something you want to sign up to.”

“I was on the set of 'Braveheart' and my mate says to me, 'Do you think this film will be any good?' And I really meant this, too, I told him 'Let me put it this way - It won't win any awards.' Cut to: five Oscars.”