Minghella Quotes & Sayings

The media in the States can be quite self-reflective. When I lived in England, I was much more aware of the day-to-day politics that were happening. Living somewhere where the media involvement is greater and so omnipresent, you become pulled into it and, at the same time, because of that, politics changes and the way it's handled changes. — Max Minghella

As a teenager I was obsessed with music and with writing and performing songs. — Anthony Minghella

I'm so disappointed in the frat parties at Columbia. I'm like an English boy going to an American college. I'm thinking cheerleaders, I'm thinking kegs. That's not what's on the cards. — Max Minghella

The BFI exists to celebrate all poets of world cinema, of the past and present. — Anthony Minghella

Of course, like all film-makers I've been mesmerised by cinema since I was a child. — Anthony Minghella

It's surreal working with people you admire. I don't think it ever goes away, no matter how human people are; there's always that moment of 'Oh wow, that's still George Clooney!' But I find that the most talented people tend to be the nicest. — Max Minghella

I had never thought of myself as a director and found out that I was not. I am a writer who was able to direct the films that I write. — Anthony Minghella

Being a writer-director can sometimes make you incredibly blinkered. — Anthony Minghella

You know you lose a lot of social skills if you're a writer. You spend too long alone. And its forced me to address that. — Anthony Minghella

The problem with growing up in a cafe was the cafe never closed, my parents worked every day of the year from morning to night. So it was a big menagerie of kids, business and cooking! — Anthony Minghella

I always listen to music, my passion and vice is music, I will be denied access to heaven because of the number of CDs I own, and I have gluttony for all types and colours of music. — Anthony Minghella

I want to tell stories which require something of an audience, by way of thought, argument, emotion, because I'm more often in an audience than I am a maker of films, and that's the kind of movie I want to see. — Anthony Minghella

There's this sense of being strange, which is at the heart of every creative person. Every writer, every actor, every director knows who Ripley is. We've made careers and lives out of pretending, making things up, inhabiting other people's stories and lives. That's what I do every day ... The story is so audacious and subversive: a central character who behaves badly and isn't apparently caught. That intrigued me no end. — Anthony Minghella

My grandmother was a huge influence on me and the fact that there was this very strong, rather formidable presence of women in my life has been an enormous value. — Anthony Minghella

Look at it this way: if you write the novel of 'Cold Mountain,' it costs exactly the same to produce and market as a novel set in a room. If you make the film, the disparity of costs is huge. — Anthony Minghella

I work fitfully, in hope rather than in expectation, invent methods which last a week, and fill notebooks with tiny, illegible writing which often defies my own attempts to decipher it. — Anthony Minghella

Once you start to realize that a film is the sum of its editing, then editing is the thing you're always looking at. — Anthony Minghella

The imaginative leap for me of writing for women is no more difficult than the one of writing for men. I've always wanted to have women well represented in the work that I've done because I've always been around them and around the way they look at the world. — Anthony Minghella

I don't hold with the notion that only bad books make good movies. — Anthony Minghella

Max Minghella is a very close friend of mine, and I talk to him regularly. — Oscar Isaac

When I became the chair of the British Film Institute, I didn't understand how much of my time would be taken up with trying to make a case for the British Film Institute: what it's for, why it exists, why it needs its money. — Anthony Minghella

I wanted to write in film or something like that. I thought acting was an embarrassing thing to say you wanted to do, especially when you're young. It seemed really uncool. — Max Minghella

No studio in Hollywood wanted 'Cold Mountain.' None. No one wanted 'Ripley,' no one wanted 'The English Patient.' That tells you there isn't really an appetite for ambitious movie-making out there. — Anthony Minghella

I have no agenda at all. I just want to do stuff I like. It can cost $200 million or $200 thousand. — Max Minghella

I think it'd be pretty unrealistic to think we're the only planet in the world with thinking beings. It's kind of a strange conceit. Especially given how many universes there must be. — Max Minghella

The weird thing about acting is you're the most competent when you're at your best, but you have to be validated. — Max Minghella

The only lesson to extract from any civil war is that it's pointless and futile and ugly, and that there is nothing glamorous or heroic about it. There are heroes, but the causes are never heroic. — Anthony Minghella

I never feel more myself than when I'm writing; I never enjoy any day more than a good writing day. — Anthony Minghella

When I auditioned with Anthony Minghella (The No. 1 Ladies Detective Agency), I loved the audition process, although I hated him for it. Because he had me audition six times for that role. Maybe three hours each. He wanted to see how quickly I could vary. — Jill Scott

I was just doing bits and pieces of acting in the U.K. I'd been in the film 'Breaking and Entering' - Anthony Minghella gave me my start and I miss him dearly. Then I made the trip out to L.A., during one of their pilot seasons, which was when they were developing 'Gossip Girl,' and I auditioned, and things came together. — Ed Westwick

The feeling of not belonging, of not being entirely worthy, of being sometimes hostage to your own sensibilities. Those things speak to me very personally. — Anthony Minghella

I was one of five very clever kids, the other kids were cleverer than I was and still are and are very achieving. The girls were always first at everything and I was always 101st! — Anthony Minghella

[Abbas Kiarostami] is a great artist and a poet. I sometimes think that if Samuel Beckett made films, he'd make them like Kiarostami makes them. — Anthony Minghella

I'm interested in stories which insist on a dog fails-to-eat-dog kind of world. I hate misanthropy, want to believe that there's a possibility that we might all be redeemed, that hope deferred makes the soul sick, that our humanity is fragile, funny, common, crazy, full of the longing for love, the failure of love. — Anthony Minghella

I looked around and we were about a mile-and-a-half from land, and I thought, 'OK, I'm going to drown now.' And then I started to flail out and panic. I gradually calmed down and I got home. But the reality was that in that moment I was panicking and I feel like that to me was the clue about Ripley, that Ripley constantly finds himself out of his depth in the film and then reacts very, very badly. — Anthony Minghella

I've always found that acting has been quite a hard thing to pre-manage because so much of it is spontaneous and the circumstances so uncontrolled. — Max Minghella

There's a great tradition at the BFI of giving fellowships and I thought one of the great jobs that I'd have at the BFI would be to give them out on a regular basis. — Anthony Minghella

I always prefer shooting on locations, because when I'm at home, it's harder to sort of get lost in the world of whatever you're making. It does, it does force this bond and community amongst a group. — Max Minghella

I think we all want to find the love of our life and live our fantasies. What art student hasn't used his art to get girls? What journalists or actors haven't used their craft as well? It's a very human instinct to pursue. — Max Minghella

I am a teller of stories ... a weaver of dreams. I can dance, sing, and in the right weather stand on my head. I know seven words of Latin. I have a little magic and a trick or two. I know the proper way to meet a dragon, can fight dirty but not fair, and once swallowed thirty oysters in a minute. I am not domestic. I am a luxury, and in that sense, necessary. — Anthony Minghella

Waiting is part of writing. When I write the word 'waiting' by hand it even looks like 'writing.' — Anthony Minghella

Betrayals during war are childlike compared with our betrayals during peace. — Anthony Minghella