Xavier Dolan Quotes & Sayings

The problems I have with a flawed script are always revealed in the editing room. — Xavier Dolan

I'm very much a hypochondriac, worried about dying, and not having enough time to work with the people I want to work with and being fulfilled as an actor. — Xavier Dolan

I don't really mind not being a part of a film - because if there is no part for me, I will never force myself upon a film. I feel like it's just a distraction. If it is not organically incorporated into the story, it just feels like a stupid appearance, like a sort of wink. I hate that. — Xavier Dolan

I think that when you're in love, you progressively go back to who you are. — Xavier Dolan

Homosexuality is like an inside baseball thing. It's like a gag that people share; 'How is your husband?' But when it comes to bringing diversity to a broader audience, suddenly it's a different road. It's what we call 'a risk.' Isn't it our responsibility to elevate the standards and change people's perceptions? — Xavier Dolan

The father figure doesn't impress me. I have a very friendly relationship with my father, but that wasn't always the case. My mother had custody, and I only saw him every other weekend. I never knew him well enough for him to inspire me. — Xavier Dolan

Orson Welles was lazy. He was a late bloomer. — Xavier Dolan

The scene of independent cinema is already a large scene in America, and not in a negative way, but it's cluttered. It's very populated with just American films, so the room left for foreign movies is not extremely vast. The American public also does not really read. They don't read subtitles. But we're like that in Canada, too. — Xavier Dolan

When I write a film, I have already made the trailer — Xavier Dolan

What motivates every other decision artistically or technically is the acting. This is what motivates everything. Never can a camera move be incompatible with the emotion of the actor at that moment. The movement, the style, the atmosphere, everything is dictated by the actor. — Xavier Dolan

That I am today the face of Louis Vuitton almost seems like a twist of fate. You dream back to front, wanting the rewards before putting the work in. And then you work, get on with life, and just sometimes these childhood dreams have a way of catching up with you. This is a true privilege for which I am eternally grateful. — Xavier Dolan

I don't find it hard to direct myself. I can easily think of me as a horrible performer or a good performer. I work with actors who cannot stand watching or looking at themselves, which is not my case. I can have an eye and perspective on whether I'm terrible or good enough for me. — Xavier Dolan

I always wrote. I've written stories since I was 9. We didn't have a computer at home, but my aunt Magda had one. Whenever I'd go to her place, I was in the basement working on her computer, writing stories. — Xavier Dolan

I don't think the way I portray mother's and son's relationships has anything to do with my age or generation. It has to do with what I lived with my own mother and what it's transformed into and the point of view it has given me on mothers and women. The way I was brought up with women. It's all about personal background. — Xavier Dolan

I have a strange relationship with influences because mine are mostly literary or painters or poets, who I'll even quote. I don't do tributes to cinema. — Xavier Dolan

I'd like to do something meaningful in the smallest ways, not just words or idiotic writing. — Xavier Dolan

All my life, I heard, 'Stop daydreaming,' 'Get over yourself,' 'You'll never get there,' 'Aim lower,' 'You'll hurt yourself,' from teachers, family, and friends. — Xavier Dolan

Six years, I didn't act. Then I wrote myself a role - I won prizes all over the world. — Xavier Dolan

I hadn't watched any Hitchcock movies when I made 'Tom at the Farm,' except for 'Vertigo' when I was 8 years old. I don't have a sophisticated film knowledge, but I have seen the legacy of classic movies in broader entertainment. — Xavier Dolan

'Heartbeats' is a film on people magnifying and subliming reality when they're in love. Hence the overstylized look, the aesthetics, the robes, the dresses, the vintage, hipster-ish look: All of this is voluntary. I'm not a hipster. I'm not! — Xavier Dolan

I don't have mom issues or dad issues. I think I have found peace about many things in my past. I have forgiven and asked to be forgiven. — Xavier Dolan

My first language is French. I just love words so much, and in French it feels like I can say whatever I want however I want. — Xavier Dolan

My aunt Julie was a production manager, and she heard of an opening. Some show was looking for children to run around the house or whatever. I auditioned and got the part, and I showed up in all of my monstrous energy, bouncing everywhere like an electron. — Xavier Dolan

Cinema is a thankless industry where sometimes to appear on the cinematic scenery is a thing for late bloomers and people who are very patient. The places are accounted, and the space is often unwelcoming. Money is rare, and independent voices are muted by the almost complete absence of risk takers. — Xavier Dolan

No one knows me in the States because the movies have been released in such an awkward, irregular fashion, all by different distributors. There is no continuity. — Xavier Dolan

I design all of the costumes for my movies, actually. — Xavier Dolan

I got a part in a package of commercials for this big drugstore from the age of 6 to 10. For four years I shot those commercials, and old ladies would stop me on the street and grab my cheeks. That's how it started. — Xavier Dolan

Of all the labels and tags and epithets people have forced upon me, there's one I don't dislike. I get called the 'enfant terrible.' In every article, it's always there. So I have to give that a meaning. — Xavier Dolan

I'd love to perform with other actors and act with actors, true actors. I would like to be in a movie and have full room for acting. — Xavier Dolan

I love women in my heart but not in my undies. — Xavier Dolan

I love doing costumes. The costume is an actor's first line, so it's gotta be right! — Xavier Dolan

I've fondly dreamed of becoming the face of an important brand since I was a child, in the same way that others dream of becoming an astronaut. I dreamed of this as I first and foremost dreamed of becoming an actor and would look up at these huge posters of celebrities while driving along motorways or crossing under bridges. — Xavier Dolan

It's ludicrous to think people work for you: 'a film by ... ' doesn't exist. Directed by, maybe, but it's a film from a collective, a group of people whom you consult and seek your counsel and advice and vice versa, too. — Xavier Dolan

I don't personally do movies for myself and a faction of very cerebral cinephiles - I do it for everybody and wish for the largest amount of people to relish whatever they find they can relish in. — Xavier Dolan

I think great artists have no time to waste with having disproportionate egos and irrational requests. They're too focused on their work to actually lose themselves in hysterical spirals where they become monsters or tyrants. — Xavier Dolan

I'm just trying to blur this very clear line we've drawn and are drawing over and over and over again between communities. Saying those are queer films and those are films. I would love for that line to disappear. For that frontier to be abolished once and for all. — Xavier Dolan

When you're adapting, you are working on someone else's problem that they have already solved. The work has been fine-tuned and read countless times, and you're just arriving at the end and taking what you want, so of course it is the regal way to moviemaking. Plays are just the ideal scripts - the structure is there and waiting for you. — Xavier Dolan

A lot of directors say, 'Do whatever you want, and I'll just change it on set.' But I love being involved in every part of production. It's very exciting. It's like an empire of creation: Everybody is working so hard to respect a vision and an idea, and it's very weird and inspiring at the same time. — Xavier Dolan

Adele's look is meticulously thought through and completely of her own traits. She has such a powerful beauty, such an emotional voice, and the kohl, the hair, everything feels organically molded to her personality. — Xavier Dolan

Music was the only voice of cinema for a very long time before we had sound; it's organically linked to cinema itself. — Xavier Dolan

Facts are, directors are not thinking of me; they think I only act in my films, because they're stupid. Or they think I'm a control freak, that I will try to, I don't know, pimp their scripts and just change everything, which I will never do. — Xavier Dolan

Sometimes I find it tiresome to write actions and describe the scene in a very intricate way so that every crew member understands where we are going - that I can find a little bit long and tiresome. But dialogue is just all my life. There's no way I could ever be challenged, not challenged, but I'm always so happy to write dialogue. — Xavier Dolan

I feel like Adele is a diva. Not in the bad way. She is one of the greatest voices of this industry and of her own art. What she offers is so unique that she's risen to such a status that very few artists can enjoy. — Xavier Dolan

In 'Laurence Anyways,' Nathalie Baye is Laurence's mother, and she is quite an awful mother. Still, she is the only one in the end who truly accepts her daughter. — Xavier Dolan

I think of 'Mommy' as very simplistic or not simplistic, but I wish for the style to actually work with what you see onscreen and what you feel in that very moment. I hope we did not disrespect the characters by being too flamboyant when it's not necessary. — Xavier Dolan

Here's the thing with the costumes for 'Mommy': Given the background and social strata that the characters come from, you can't really imagine that they've gone shopping lately, so we went for that very normcore, fashionless era in history, the early 2000s, which was completely transitional. — Xavier Dolan

It's important to see how people see your work and how they feel about it. I know a lot of directors who are like, 'I never read reviews,' and I'm like, 'Yeah I can tell.' — Xavier Dolan

I have the impression that every time I'm heartbroken, I leave a bit of myself behind. I am the believer. I go back and do the same mistakes over and over again and sign them proudly. — Xavier Dolan

I think anything is possible to anyone who dreams, dares, works and never gives up. — Xavier Dolan

When I saw Bryan Singer's 'Usual Suspects,' I knew how it was going to end because I'd seen 'Scary Movie.' Which is not the preferred order of things, but that's how it is because my childhood was 'Home Alone,' 'Matilda,' 'Batman Returns,' 'Jumanji,' 'Secret Garden,' 'Jack,' 'Mrs. Doubtfire,' 'Titanic.' Only family films from the '90s. — Xavier Dolan

The motivation for making movies is that people actually see them. — Xavier Dolan

Acting is everything to me and it's at the core of every decision. Whatever importance costumes, details, lights, camera, dialogue and everything else have, if the acting is bad, cheap, or overdone everything else is just gone. — Xavier Dolan

Men are born privileged in the scale of things - I'm generalizing, but it's true. Women have to define themselves in the eyes of men. They have to fight for their rights, especially in a society that will pretend that there is no fight or no battle, that it's a cliche, that feminists are reactionary, all these things. — Xavier Dolan

As a director you want to have actors, not only surpassing themselves, but also going somewhere, going different places. — Xavier Dolan

I was a very violent kid. I think movies and writing and art have been a way of channeling this. — Xavier Dolan

A movie that is unable to elicit emotion isn't a movie. — Xavier Dolan

I don't master my craft or my style enough to have any philosophy or dogma to which I feel I belong. — Xavier Dolan

I plough all my money into my next film, so I never actually have any money. It's always invisible. — Xavier Dolan

I don't belong to any school or clique or ghetto. I don't have any preconceived ideas. I'm trying to serve a story and not a genre or a style. — Xavier Dolan

When I first got to Cannes, I was very insecure about everything, so I put on this extravagant facade. Can you blame me? I was 19. — Xavier Dolan

Film-making is not liberating. It drains a lot out of you, and it's fulfilling only temporarily. It's a very thankless thing at times. When you're spending all that time on a film, you don't want 40,000 people to see it - it's just not enough. You dream of more. — Xavier Dolan

I'm sick of people imposing cultural references and influences on me, but I'm not sick of people talking about my age. — Xavier Dolan

What I'm interested in is how your career choices can affect your private life, romantically or with your mom, your relatives, your friends, your hometown, and how media manipulates information - not newspapers or blogs, but the magazines that people impulse-buy that tell you what's hot and who's not. — Xavier Dolan

The nature and the DNA of IMAX has been redefined in the past years to shoot these huge blockbusters. But I think that it's not the sole purpose of IMAX to capture cars exploding in your face. — Xavier Dolan

It's become a habit to make films where the father is absent. My father impresses me, but the father figure does not. — Xavier Dolan

I've been recording forever. I'm a watcher. I'm a stalker. I love everything about people. It's always been a passion for me to observe. — Xavier Dolan

My extreme characters are in a state of rebellion or who are being ostracized or being misunderstood, or misfits or trying to fit in and fighting for their rights to love, live, and co-exist. They sort of mirror my own demons. — Xavier Dolan

To me, the idea of success is to be able to work with people you admire. — Xavier Dolan

'Titanic' made me want to tell stories ... To have all these characters and costumes and have ambition and think big and have dreams ... It came at a very troubled period of my life. — Xavier Dolan

For me, hipsterism is for one to appropriate the codes of a social class or another milieu that wasn't theirs originally, in order to define their personality through something different and unique. Which is why a lot of hipsters live downtown, and they're dressed as farmers. Then you have the Oscar Wilde hipster: the dandy. — Xavier Dolan

For me, 'Mommy' was about developing very humane characters that would be very credible and endearing and work onscreen. — Xavier Dolan

There might be a proper age to know how to tell a story, but there's no proper age to start telling them. — Xavier Dolan

We are all different human beings, and we all have different backgrounds, and we stem from different social strata. That is what defines how you hear people talk, how you want to quote them when you speak. We all have different fears and doubts and complexes and this is what shapes the way we see other people. Especially characters. — Xavier Dolan

I'd like to be taken in charge of as an actor, not to be abandoned with asinine dialogue and meaningless actions or stereotyped characters. I'd like to feel like I'm in a character driven story. — Xavier Dolan

I have struggles in screenwriting that lead me to a third act that's always more or less efficiently wrapped up in a fourth act that's trying to give closure to too many things. — Xavier Dolan

It was a privilege to direct the music video for Adele's beautiful, heartbreaking song, 'Hello.' When I first heard it, all the images appeared clearly in my head - and her trust and generosity allowed me to work with abandon artistically and emotionally, like she always does. It made me extremely proud. — Xavier Dolan

I'd rather be referred to as a precocious young Quebec talent, than not be referred to at all. — Xavier Dolan