Top 40 Christopher Nolan Quotes

The best actors instinctively feel out what the other actors need, and they just accommodate it.

Batman and Superman are very different characters but they’re both iconic and elemental. Finding the right story for them both is the key.

I’ve always been a movie guy, movies have been my thing. I love movies, all kinds of movies.

I think there has been this increasing misperception that kids will not respond to something because it’s also for adults. I think that often that tends to get underestimated.

Revenge is a particularly interesting concept, especially the notion of whether or not it exists outside of just an abstract idea.

I made ‘Batman’ the way I made every other film, and I’ve done it to my own satisfaction – because the film, truly, is exactly the way I wanted it to be.

I just love photographing things and putting them together to tell a story.

I just love photographing things and putting them together to tell a story.

My approach with actors is to try and give them whatever it is they need from me. Direction to me is about listening and responding and realizing how much they need to know from me and how much they have figured out for themselves, really.

Yeah, it’s odd when you look back at your own work. Some filmmakers don’t look back at their work at all. I look at my work a lot, actually. I feel like I learned something while looking at stuff I’ve done in terms of what I’m going to do in the future, mistakes I’ve made and things at work or what have you.

The only job that was ever of interest to me other than filmmaking is architecture.

I don’t particularly enjoy watching films in 3D because I think that a well-shot and well-projected film has a very three-dimensional quality to it, so I’m somewhat sceptical of the technology.

The problem with big films is they snowball very rapidly and you can never pull back. It’s a pipeline that needs to be fed.

The thing with computer-generated imagery is that it’s an incredibly powerful tool for making better visual effects. But I believe in an absolute difference between animation and photography.

But, in each case, as a filmmaker who’s been given sizable budgets with which to work, I feel a responsibility to the audience to be shooting with the absolute highest quality technology that I can and make the film in a way that I want.

For the last 10 years, I’ve felt increasing pressure to stop shooting film and start shooting video, but I’ve never understood why. It’s cheaper to work on film, it’s far better looking, it’s the technology that’s been known and understood for a hundred years, and it’s extremely reliable.

I’ve never read Joseph Campbell, and I don’t know all that much about story archetypes.

But I have been interested in dreams, really since I was a kid. I have always been fascinated by the idea that your mind, when you are asleep, can create a world in a dream and you are perceiving it as though it really existed.

As soon as television became the only secondary way in which films were watched, films had to adhere to a pretty linear system, whereby you can drift off for ten minutes and go and answer the phone and not really lose your place.

But, in each case, as a filmmaker who’s been given sizable budgets with which to work, I feel a responsibility to the audience to be shooting with the absolute highest quality technology that I can and make the film in a way that I want.

You know when Hollywood does a great big blockbuster that really wraps you up in a world, and lets you believe in extraordinary things that move you in some way, in an almost operatic sensibility? That to me is the most fun I have at the movies.

When I look at a digitally acquired and projected image, it looks inferior against an original negative anamorphic print or an IMAX one.

No, I’ve only ever done one film at a time.

I sometimes think how strange it is that I’ve got to do exactly what I want, and that is difficult to cope with. You have to remind yourself every few weeks: I’m making this film and this is exactly what I want to do. And suddenly you’re happy again.

For the last 10 years, I’ve felt increasing pressure to stop shooting film and start shooting video, but I’ve never understood why. It’s cheaper to work on film, it’s far better looking, it’s the technology that’s been known and understood for a hundred years, and it’s extremely reliable.

The term ‘genre’ eventually becomes pejorative because you’re referring to something that’s so codified and ritualised that it ceases to have the power and meaning it had when it first started.

I’ve been interested in dreams since I as a kid and I’ve wanted to do a film about them for a long time.

I’ve been interested in dreams since I as a kid and I’ve wanted to do a film about them for a long time.

I have been interested in dreams, really since I was a kid. I have always been fascinated by the idea that your mind, when you are asleep, can create a world in a dream and you are perceiving it as though it really existed.

When you play a videogame, you could be a completely different person than you are in the real world, certain aspects of the way your brain works can be leveraged for something you could never do in the real world.

As soon as television became the only secondary way in which films were watched, films had to adhere to a pretty linear system, whereby you can drift off for ten minutes and go and answer the phone and not really lose your place.

I have always been a huge fan of Ridley Scott and certainly when I was a kid. ‘Alien’, ‘Blade Runner’ just blew me away because they created these extraordinary worlds that were just completely immersive. I was also an enormous Stanley Kubrick fan for similar reasons.

If I could steal someone’s dream myself, I’d have to go for one of Orson Welles.

To be honest, I don’t enjoy watching movies much when I’m working. They tend to fall apart on me a bit.

I never considered myself a lucky person. I’m the most extraordinary pessimist. I truly am.

The problem with big films is they snowball very rapidly and you can never pull back. It’s a pipeline that needs to be fed.

But ‘Memento’ was so successful, such a huge cult hit, almost on the scale of a large film. If that had happened, with all the acclaim, before the next job, I’d have found it very difficult to figure out what to do next.

I think there’s a vague sense out there that movies are becoming more and more unreal. I know I’ve felt it.

My approach with actors is to try and give them whatever it is they need from me. Direction to me is about listening and responding and realizing how much they need to know from me and how much they have figured out for themselves, really.

I sometimes think how strange it is that I’ve got to do exactly what I want, and that is difficult to cope with. You have to remind yourself every few weeks: I’m making this film and this is exactly what I want to do. And suddenly you’re happy again.