Polanski Quotes & Sayings

It's very important to set your place in a concrete environment. I think Chekhov said that the important thing when you have a play or any kind of novel is to set the roots in a concrete place. — Roman Polanski

[on Springsteen's "Stolen Car":] A kind of mystical film noir, written by Kafka and shot by Polanski. — Adam Sweeting

I'm hooked on Polanski's films, his psychological thrillers. I love 'Rosemary's Baby,' I love 'Repulsion.' — Vera Farmiga

Twinkle the Destroyer wasn't alone, it seemed. There were more gnomes than I thought. Pip the Bringer of Pain, Chauncey the Devourer of Souls, Cuddly the Inexplicable, Gnoman Polanski, Pith the Bitey, Gnome ChompSky, Gnomie Malone, Chuck the Norriser- the list went on.
'It's like a mishmash of violent imagery, TV, an political references'
'I told you they like TV. I'm not sure the understand everything they see, though, so they don't fully grasp what they're stealing their names from. Like, I think Gnome ChompSky just thought it sounded tough and Chuck the Norriser came from watching too many episodes of Walker, Texas Ranger. They believe Chuck Norris is a demigod'
'Who doesn't? — Lish McBride

In France, I guess there's something like a tyranny in mentalities - we accept success badly, beauty, money. People are certainly envious, and this creates negative energy. This is annoying. I suffered a great deal at one time. I had to fight harder than others. Add to that my marriage to Polanski. — Emmanuelle Seigner

I think if Roman Polanski had asked me to do the phone book, I would have said, 'Yes.' — Pierce Brosnan

Cinema should make you forget you are sitting in a theater. — Roman Polanski

Quite often I reflect on the big house in Hollywood, on 'Midnight Confessions and on Ramon Novarro and on the fact that Roman Polanski and I are godparents to the same child, but writing has not yet helped me to see what it means. — Joan Didion

Every failure made me more confident. Because I wanted even more to achieve as revenge, to show that I could. — Roman Polanski

I see Macbeth as a young, open-faced warrior, who is gradually sucked into a whirpool of events because of his ambition. When he meets the weird sisters and hears their prophecy, he's like the man who hopes to win a million - a gamble for high stakes. — Roman Polanski

Happy endings make me puke. — Roman Polanski

There's a famous quote regarding Polanski. Perhaps Jack Nicholson said it, perhaps someone else, but it goes, "Polanski is the five-foot Pole I wouldn't touch with a ten-foot pole." So, yes, the world seems to despise him. I, however, love his work. It's so much funnier and well-constructed than the pompous stuff of Kubrick. Polanski balances between camp and horror in much the same way Billy Wilder did. — Chuck Palahniuk

Someone like Roman Polanski comes with a lifetime of achievement, cinematically. — Pierce Brosnan

If I had killed somebody, it wouldn't have had so much appeal to the press, you see? But f-ing, you see, and the young girls. Judges want to f- young girls. Juries want to f- young girls. Everyone wants to f- young girls! — Roman Polanski

I know that atmosphere of the Parisian apartment building, with the twin menaces of the concierge on the ground floor and the landlord upstairs. — Roman Polanski

I never made a film which fully satisfied me. — Roman Polanski

I was at a party three weeks prior to the murders at Roman Polanski and Sharon Tate's house. — Nancy Sinatra

Whenever I get happy, I always have a terrible feeling. — Roman Polanski

It's easy to direct while acting; there's one less person to argue with. — Roman Polanski

A Latin teacher told me I might make a good actress, and that stuck in my memory. I did some modeling, and Polanski gave me that small part. — Jacqueline Bisset

Actors are hard to photograph because they never want to reveal who they are. You don't know if you're getting a character from a Chekhov play or a Polanski film. It depends what mood they're in. — David Bailey

I like the Polanski stuff more than anything else. Rosemary's Baby is still one of my favorite movies of all time. The idea of her being impregnated with the devil is just so frightening. — Dylan McDermott

My work is better, maybe all filmmakers are better, for Polanski's imprint on cinema. He created language for all of us to use, there is no question about that. — Allison Anders

Why did Erich von Stronheim leave Germany? Why did Hitchcock leave England? If you were a director you'd like to work in Hollywood too. Now go ahead and ask me if I'm still Polish. You people keep asking me this question. You want Polish artists to make it in the world, but when they do, you accuse them of treason. — Roman Polanski

He's very concealed, Polanski. We became very close friends, but I don't think I ever saw him drop his guard. I didn't see him upset or anything like that, we just did the work. — Ronald Harwood

To me Polanski is one of the greats in terms of psychological horror. It's just hard to top him because he's so damn good at it. — Dylan McDermott

I remember when I took Quentin Tarantino with me to a very private screening of the documentary 'Roman Polanski: Wanted and Desired,' which shows some of the legal irregularities of his case. I was involved by the film, and it was an amazing experience to see people weep at the end of it. — Harvey Weinstein

When I really love a movie, I don't want to spoil it by too frequent visits. But I like to come back to certain films, which I admire. — Roman Polanski

I simply think there's life after movies. I have to adhere to this philosophy, and therefore I like other things, and I have other passions. None are as big as movie-making, but they exist. — Roman Polanski

The whole showmanship is NOT to answer every question. — Roman Polanski

I was in college in the sixties when movies really got good. I'm a fan of Bergman and Hitchcock and Polanski and Antonioni. Those are my gods. — David Small

I know what I heard, Ms. Polanski," he said firmly, those lovely lips of his thinning with discontent. "You won't admit it, but I heard you think the word vampire." "Maybe that's because you're just like one, Detective. Because as of right now, you're sucking the life out of me. — Dakota Cassidy

I still had some honor ... I still have some now. — Roman Polanski

'Venus in Fur' is very Polanski: you have the knife of 'Rosemary's Baby'; you have Thomas disguised as a woman as in 'The Tenant,' when Vanda puts makeup on him, it's like 'Cul de Sac'; the dress of Tess and other details that are very Polanski. He fell in love with the play because it was so much him. — Emmanuelle Seigner

I like skiing, among other things, because I have moments when I am alone in the mountains. That's fantastic, when there's nobody around you. You see miles around you, and the sun is almost down . — Roman Polanski

I did not have a reputation to defend. — Roman Polanski

I don't think that there would be more users if drugs were legalized. — Roman Polanski

Normal love isn't interesting. I assure you that it's incredibly boring. — Roman Polanski

Polanski was very precise. I think he still is. — Catherine Deneuve

How would you compare Polanski or Kubrick? I try not to do any comparisons. — Tim Roth

Roman Polanski is one of my favorite filmmakers, and John Phillips one of my favorite songwriters. I had the honor to meet each of these men and was almost giddy to be blessed with the chance to tell each artist what his work meant has to me. — Allison Anders

To quote Shirley Polanski, head waitress at the Humdinger Diner: "Beware of a big man whose stomach doesn't move when he laughs."
I think a Chinese philosopher said it first, but these things trickle down to the food service community. — Joan Bauer

Some experience is helpful. "The Pianist" was a film that I could make with my eyes closed because I had lived it and everything was still alive in me. — Roman Polanski

I don't know anyone who is not using drugs for the reason that they're illegal. — Roman Polanski

The torches ran off, and I found myself in a forest, at night, without any light, on skis, and that was not fun - particularly because I was drunk. Luckily at some point I started to see the light of the ski lift. To be in the forest in the middle of the night, it's terrible. — Roman Polanski

I think Polanski's an amazing director. — David Duchovny

I don't want to direct a movie as good as Antonioni, or Kubrick, or Polanski, or whoever. I want it to be my own. I think I've got the seed of it and, what's more, that I can make movies that are different and informed by my taste. — Jack Nicholson

I can only say that whatever my life and work have been, I'm not envious of anyone-and this is my biggest satisfaction. — Roman Polanski

That's one of the difficult things of being an actor that I'm still not used to. You have to go, you have to show up at these places where you know nobody, and sometimes with really impressive, high stakes people like Roman Polanski. — John C. Reilly

I admire actors for their infinite patience. That's why they need all those trailers and all their crowd of people who pamper them. But it is a drag to get up sometimes at 4:30 in the morning and get into makeup, and wait forever until they call you onto the set. — Roman Polanski

I don't like the slasher stuff, myself, but I do like the psychological horror of Roman Polanski and that world. But, it's curious to me why people do like to be afraid. — Dylan McDermott

You have to show violence the way it is. If you don't show it realistically, then that's immoral and harmful. If you don't upset people, then that's obscenity. — Roman Polanski

I don't rehash the past. It's my baggage. That's all. I accept things as they are. — Roman Polanski

And to think, she'd once had the hots for him, back in the old days (six months ago) when razor-thin men with noses like Durante and an encyclopaedic knowledge of de Niro movies had really been her style. Now she saw him for what he was, flotsam from a lost ship of hope. Still a pill-freak, still a theoretical bisexual, still devoted to early Polanski movies and symbolic pacifism. — Clive Barker

I consider myself more a craftsman than an artist. — Roman Polanski

With each film, i need an artistic challenge so I don't get bored! I like to tackle challenges. — Roman Polanski

In Paris, one is always reminded of being a foreigner. If you park your car wrong, it is not the fact that it's on the sidewalk that matters, but the fact that you speak with an accent. — Roman Polanski

The best films are because of nobody but the director. — Roman Polanski

I would rather live in a country where children are protected and their predators prosecuted, and even (which in Hollywood is evidently not always the same thing) disapproved of. — Roman Polanski

If you have a great passion it seems that the logical thing is to see the fruit of it, and the fruit are children. — Roman Polanski

When I got the invitation to be part of 'The Ghost' or 'The Ghost Writer,' as it's now known, from Mr. Roman Polanski, my interest level was very piqued. I was very excited and pleased to get such an offer from Mr. Roman Polanski. — Pierce Brosnan

I sometimes cry in the moments that are not necessarily dramatic or tragic in the films, often because of the music. I wonder whether it's the music that has that effect on you in this film. — Roman Polanski

I'd never imagined myself writing at all until I was almost 30. And horror films weren't to my taste, at least the super popular (slasher-y) ones of the day back then. The first novel I ever loved as a kid was Frankenstein, and I was always a crazy Hitchcock and Polanski fan ... but I never saw myself - a square spazzy girl from the suburbs - writing anything that would horrify anyone. Or so I thought ... — Karen Walton

While liberals appeared to be safely in power, feminists could perhaps afford the luxury of defining Larry Flynt or Roman Polanski as Enemy Number One. Now that we have to cope with Jerry Falwell and Jesse Helms, a rethinking of priorities seems in order. — Ellen Willis

I would love to make a film about aging that would take place before the war. It would follow the stages in the life of a woman who would not have at her disposal the resources of today like cosmetic surgery, creams and pills. — Roman Polanski

To the audience it doesn't really matter how much the director struggled with an actor. It's the result that counts. — Roman Polanski

I want people to go to the movies. I am the man of the spectacle. I'm playing. — Roman Polanski

I don't really know what is shocking. When you tell the story of a man who is beheaded, you have to show how they cut off his head. If you don't, it's like telling a dirty joke and leaving out the punch line. — Roman Polanski

My films are the expression of momentary desires. I follow my instincts, but in a disciplined way. — Roman Polanski

Polanski's 'Chinatown' is a film that I have purposefully and consciously imitated, but 'Vertigo' is one that has got into my bloodstream. Every time I reappraise things that I've done, the influence is there, time and time again. — Allen Coulter

Do I have a small movie in me? Yeah, probably, when I'm 60. But I'm not Hal Ashby, I'm not Roman Polanski. I'm true to myself. Whether you like it or not. — Brett Ratner

Roman Polanski is a man who cares deeply about his art and its place in this world. What happened to him on his incredible path is filled with tragedy, and most men would have collapsed. Instead, he became a great artist and continues to make great films. — Harvey Weinstein

We often hurt the ones we love, dear."

Adam exhaled. "It's what I do best, Mrs. Polanski. — Teresa Toten