90 Quotes by Paul Greengrass

It's a circus life, the movies. It's a lot of travelling, a lot of antisocial hours; there's a lot of it that's about escaping from life.

Tom Hanks has built his career playing ordinary men.

Making a film, every film, is a big gamble, large or small. The more that you do it, the more you're aware of that.

With a franchise movie, it's got to turn the wheels of the industry, and the studio has to have them. So you start with a release date. They say we're going to make a new 'Bourne' film, and it comes out summer of X. Then they start on a script, and invariably, the script is not ready in time.

In my little imperfect way, what I'm trying to do is understand the world. As a filmmaker, you realize as you get older that each film is part of a dialogue you're having with yourself. That started when I was working in documentaries. And in a way, I've never deviated from it.

Making movies is both entirely ludicrous and incredibly hard. It's a preposterous way to spend your time. You give up a lot for the privilege of doing it, and one of the things you get are relationships of immense trust that you see forged in situations of immense stress.

Directing is all tied up with childhood loneliness. It's such an odd thing to end up doing.

I just don't get on with institutions. I need simple relationships with people who believe in me.

Studio people are bright. Empowering. They don't want to have to interfere creatively. That's their horror story, too.