Stephen Daldry Quotes & Sayings

“I never want to make a film. I don't wake up in the morning going, 'Ooh, I'd really love to be on set making a film today'. I'm aware that other contemporary film directors perceive film-making as what they do, as what they have to do. But I would hope that I am more catholic in my tastes.”

“I always say, 'I really need to take a break.' It's three days in and I'm getting pretty bored.”

“I am, in fact, Superman. Every morning I wake up and go into a telephone booth and change my costume, and then go to work.”

“One of the great joys of my job is that you spend a huge amount of time investigating different areas of literature.”

“There has been one defining production for me in each decade.”

“You go through a process of refinement and getting rid of the excesses of your early youth in terms of your excitement about what theatre can do.”

“The really successful work in England tends to be working-class writers telling working-class stories. The film industry has been slow to wake up to that, for a variety of reasons. It still shocks me how few films are written or made in England about working-class life, given that those are the people who go to movies.”

“I love changing. I hate it when people try to box me in to a relationship or in a work context. Any situation where I feel boxed in freaks me out. And I feel the need to reinvent myself or I'll get bored.”

“I think it's absolutely fascinating that in Berlin the parliament can discuss actively the role of their soldiers in Afghanistan because is it still possible, literally, for a German soldier to take up arms.”

“Most theater methodology is predicated on the idea of repeated actions. That's what you work toward. Having the actor repeat the same moment eight times a week. In a film, it's getting that one moment right.”