273 Quotes by Ridley Scott

There’s nothing really original. Alien was a B-movie. Five directors passed on it before me. Because I was into Heavy Metal, I read it, and thought, “Wow, I want to do this.” I was on a plane to Hollywood in 22 hours. It was a B-movie and was elevated to an A-plus movie by sheer good taste.

I always say to people when I’m trying to get something going, bringing on other producers or other directors, “You can think of 95 reasons why not to make a movie. You’ve got to address why you want to make the movie and get it done. Just do it.” I tend to live by that rule.

The time it would take me to write a screenplay it would take me the time to make two films. I would rather make the movies and I’m a better moviemaker than I a would be writer.

Is it terrible to not understand a thing, if it’s beautiful?

Well, not totally because over the years I’ve probably done 2,700 commercials. So, I’m always ticking. And in a way that was a huge advantage because I was able to take my time choosing my film subjects because I wasn’t relying on the fear of not being able to work.

Digital is a different world because you are sitting at home and a hi tech piece of equipment today is within reach of most people, so they are watching a pretty hi tech version of whatever you’ve done.

I watched Someone to Watch Over Me the other night. I thought it was a really good movie. It’s a great movie.

I do like to make films with a political theme, but sometimes it’s nice simply to make people laugh. That’s the hardest thing to do in fact.

Films like Harry Potter and Narnia, I’m sure they’ll do another one. The biggest audience of course is the youngsters.