22 Quotes by Tobias Lindholm

I studied screenwriting at film school and was constantly learning how to construct three-act dramas.

I've never been a soldier. In Denmark, at 18, as a male, you go in a draw, and if they pick you, you go and serve for a year. I didn't.

Everyone in Denmark has at least two or three sailors in their family; sea travel is part of the DNA of our nation, and because of that, I'd always wanted to tell a story aboard a ship.

I'm a filmmaker; I want to make films. I don't want to sit in a hotel room waiting to make films, and I can control my thing in Denmark; I can make the film I want to make... of course, I have to write a good script, all that, but if I do my job, it will happen.

No doubt there is a Scandinavian wave. I guess everybody is just surfing their wave until it breaks and hoping it won't be too soon.

In real life, we're not walking around waiting for something to happen. We live our lives, and then suddenly we fall in love with somebody, and it's a big mess because you have a wife already, and it's going to destroy your life. And, at the same time, it's beautiful. Often, in films, it's not like that.

The camera cannot leave the man, but the man can leave the camera. It's in the style of documentary where you make an agreement between a camera and a man and say, "I'm going to film you now."

I never thought about writing the part where the pirates get on board the ship. I wasn't interested in that. I'm not an action director. I'm sure that other guys could do it a lot better. I couldn't put my heart into it.

Everybody can write a beginning and an ending, but to actually define that middle point where everything will go from professional to person, where everything will change, is always the hardest part, because it can very easily be too constructed, too artificial.