Top 45 Marianne Elliott Quotes

I had done drama at university, but I never thought I could be a director. There were so few female directors then. I just assumed you had to be a man to be a director. I also assumed you had to be extremely authoritarian and extremely intellectual, none of which I was.

It’s predominantly a male society, predominately a male culture, predominantly a male theatre, and predominantly male critics, but that’s changing, definitely.

Having a child is all-consuming; so is doing a play.

‘Friends’ is easy to dismiss, but it’s really good television – the art with which those actors play with comedy shouldn’t be denigrated. And they also know how to play irony, which I think a lot of English actors might find quite difficult.

I never wanted anything to do with the theatre as a child. I was dragged there under duress.

For me, ‘Angels in America’ is not really about AIDS. For me, it’s a metaphor for anybody who is struggling with serious illness or having to face their own demise. All of the characters face some form of destruction in themselves.

Some directors have the gift of the gab, but I don’t.

You need to see yourself in what you direct, I think – directing is quite self-indulgent from that point of view.

As you get older, you realise that your identity becomes more important – the environment in which you have grown is actually part of who you are just as much as your family or your school.

My father was a director, and my mother and grandparents were actors, so I spent a great deal of my time as a teenager trying to get away from the theatre.

When I was a kid, I never spoke. I would sit under a table and not speak to anybody. No words for years.

I didn’t want to just be remembered for ‘War Horse.’

For me, it’s life or death doing plays: there’s this perfectionist thing about me that it has to be brilliant – anything less than that is a failure.

If you put a blank canvas in front of Matisse and say, ‘This has to be a success,’ who’s going to pick up a paintbrush?

There’s a certain type of theatre that I haven’t got any time for at all – established, boring, same-old stuff without any reason or passion. There’s quite a lot of it about, and it motivates me to try to do something different, something risky, raw, ugly, and challenging.

I believe that theater has to be utterly life-changing for the people watching it.

It’s difficult to find an actress prepared to play a fading star.

Staging any play is very exposing because, if you are going to do it well, you have to put so much of yourself into it.

I used to love getting older.

I felt like that growing up – that I didn’t have a voice.

It’s a tremendous asset if you have a visual eye because you can make huge visual statements in a very theatrical way and play to the strength of theatre. But the high end of directing is working with actors and making the acting the best it can be.

I’m aware, as I get older, there are less and less stories that really pertain to me and who I am and where I’m going.

I would like to see more female stories out there, particularly older female stories.

If it is just another run-of-the-mill show, then what is the point?

You have to lead by example. You have to be the calmest person in the room. You have to be very open. I think the qualities of a director are to enable and to find the best in everybody.

If you are working in a publicly subsidized building, then you have a responsibility to deliver truly interesting, risky, innovative, even provocative work. Work that speaks to your audience in many resonant ways. The priority is less about the financial rewards.

I suppose what’s so amazing about working at the National Theatre is that, because it’s a subsidized theatre, you’re not trying to create a product that’s going to have a mass market in order to make the money back.

What I really would like to see is more female stories out there. Particularly older female stories, because women are predominantly ticket-buyers.

I’ve enjoyed lots of productions, and it’s always been down to the actors I’ve been working with.

If you can’t see it, you can’t be it. It’s just having those brilliant women break out and do something – then other girls can say, ‘I can do it, too!’

My dad had a big influence on me, and although I was never very bright at school, I used to love philosophising with him about big universal things – and I think that’s what directing is.

Whether you’re a man or a woman, life can be very, very difficult and confusing and desperate, and it’s life-enhancing to know that somehow, there is a way through it.

It would be quite interesting to use Kermit the Frog to act like a real frog. But it wouldn’t produce captivating theatre.

I think theater is so undervalued. I have seen things there that have been far more vivid than things that actually have happened.

The plays I choose to work on are about having masks. We all have masks in life, but there is a different inner life going on. The audience has to work hard to see what is going on. I love what is not on display.

My generation feels it has been lied to a great deal.

Directors have this mask of being in control and in charge, but underneath, I’m terrified.

I had a very embarrassing time acting extremely badly at university, which is when directing suddenly became so attractive.

It is draining when you have a child, and there aren’t many women directors with kids out there as role models.

I am quite an insecure person, and I think that, like any director, if I’m asked about my vision for a piece, I feel very vulnerable.

I always wanted to beat my own path.

I’m interested in teasing out the contemporary issues in what I’m working on, however old the piece might be, whenever I’m working on it.

It’s impossible to feel the creative juices flowing if you’re always worried about the end result. I think really, really good work comes out of people being quite open, not stressed, really exploring, trying to be imaginative, without worrying too much about the end result.

With everything I do, there always seems to be a massive risk involved.

I worked in casting for about five years before I became a director, and that taught me a huge amount because you never actually will see the character walk through the door – and if you do, then you have to be slightly suspicious of that.