Quotes

When you grow up like that, and suddenly you decide you intend to make movies, everybody says, 'It's impossible.' And I'm here and I'm living my dream.

[on Finding Neverland (2004)] It's not the exact accurate story, but for me the film really isn't about reality. It's about the transformation of imagination, about creativity, about belief. That basically, if you believe, you can make anything happen.

What I'm passionate about is telling stories which mean something to me.

Cities like Atlanta are very advanced, but once you get outside the city, it feels like 100 years ago. Our producer is black, and we were standing in this room and somebody actually said, in front of him, "Can you tell the colored man to wait outside?" It's shocking.

That's why I jump from genre to genre, because I always feel I'm doing something new and fresh. I can always fail, but I don't try to repeat myself. I felt, with Bond, doing something so completely different after The Kite Runner (2007) would be refreshing and challenging. That's how I try not to fall into parody myself.

I don't think people understand what it takes to make a movie unless they've experienced it themselves or been around it. It's a miracle every time you make a movie, and a bigger miracle if it turns out well. So many things have to come together. It's always a new adventure and a new undertaking - a beautiful tool - because storytelling is one of the ancient ways human beings communicate.

I feel really good about Quantum of Solace (2008). The issue which we always had at the time, and still bugs me, [was] we never had a completed script. It was the writers' strike and so... we could've gotten longer, deeper but at the same time I'm really pleased with the movie. (...) But at the time, the main thing for me - what I was missing - or wished that we'd had... six months without the writers' strike, to develop the script properly, get certain sub-plots a little deeper and stronger. (...) I haven't seen the movie since, so I have to see how it's aged. It would be interesting to re-watch it. [2015]