30 Quotes by Fernando Meirelles

But then, watching the whole film, it was like hearing my own voice - like the director preaching to the audience. So I started to cut and in the end, I think it became more of a love story.

We're supposed to capture what's in the air and give a form to it. The artist is like an antenna, always searching for new ideas and ways to express them.

Sometimes, you read a script, and you believe passionately that you must play this character. And I needed to show that passion to him, although I think I downplayed my passion a bit because I didn't want to scare him off. I didn't want him to think I was crazy enough to be a problem.

Ralph deserves an award for this performance. He's so relaxed, so natural. We're used to seeing Ralph Fiennes as cold, rational. Here he's lighter. He brings a humanity to the role. He's played a lot of edgy characters. Here he plays an average character.

This plot in this film is based on this particular case in Nigeria -- but it's very usual to test drugs in Africa because it's less expensive for big companies, ... City of God.

This is the sequel. Geography makes them seem separate, but eventually the connections between them will become clear.

This is the part that I like most, in the process, is to edit and try to find (the story). Sometimes you think you have a film, and then you change something and it becomes different. It's a wonderful job. Because it surprises you.

That little village that's raided in the film, it's just lost in the desert. There's nothing there. We came in and turned it into a big operation, like an al-Qaida training camp in the middle of the desert.

In 'City of God,' it was more complicated, because we were shooting in areas controlled by drug dealers, so we always had people around, boys with guns, ... It was sort of threatening, not totally relaxed. Kenya was more relaxed. There was no organized crime inside the slums, and we were well received.