I deliberately never read about films before I see them.
— Andrea Arnold
I hear filmmakers saying, 'I wanted to make to make a film about this issue, or this theme,' but I never start like that.
I just like doing things from my own head.
I'm sure most of us remember being a kid and you have all of this endless time where two weeks before Christmas feels like ten years. I used to go to bed to try and go to sleep to try and make it go faster.
I've not used a score in any of my films so far.
I normally go with the flow.
Sometimes when you're going fast, your instincts can be very useful.
My films don't give you an easy ride. I can see that. The sense I get is that people have quite a physical experience with them. They feel afterwards that they've really been through something.
We're all quite vulnerable human beings really.
I'm lucky.
I definitely feel sorry more people don't get to see my films. They aren't inaccessible, and if people got the chance to see them, I know they'd like them.
Films are all about decisions, and that's what I love.
People ask, 'Are your things autobiographical?,' and I think, no, they're not autobiographical directly, but of course my life has informed my work.
A lot of people have something to say about 'Wuthering Heights,' but nobody quite nails it.
I work best when there is adversity: I seem to get calmer the more the fur is flying.
I was never that comfortable in front of the camera, it always terrified me.
Once I've finished a film I just want to get on and make another one.
I do believe some people can naturally act and don't know it.
Every time I start a film I feel like I'm starting the first time, ever.
I never write with an actor in mind - never.
I don't think you can question your instinct; you should always trust it.
Whenever I get fed up with life I love to go wandering in nature.
Usually, I make such small-budget films that I can't afford to buy weather.
I don't want to think too much about me.
I wonder whether my bleak-o-meter is set differently from other people's.
I love insects. They are amazing.
As long as you keep your budgets small, there's a way of making films.
Dramatically, I like darkness, I like conflict - but I don't see the world as defined by them.
I try and be truthful.
I always think that if you look at anyone in detail, you will have empathy for them because you recognize them as a human being, no matter what they've done.
I am obsessed with why people turn out the way they are.
I find it kind of weird that directors want to put themselves in their films.
I was a freestyle dancer; I wasn't trained.
With a lot of films, people are sitting on the outside looking in, but I want the audience to get a bit more intimately involved with what's going on, so that they maybe can experience it a little bit more intensely.
You learn on every film so much.
I always get quite close to my script because I work quite hard on them.
I'm fascinated with what an audience will take away from an image.
I've got no education.
Obviously when you cast someone who hasn't acted before it can be a massive opportunity for them.
I don't read reviews.
Interestingly, I never thought I'd do an adaptation. I've also been quite against them. I think trying to translate one medium to another is wrong. I never really felt that books fitted into film. Generally people are disappointed, aren't they?
I don't feel very revengeful in life at all.
I don't think estates are grim places.
I was 18 when I got my first TV job.
I grew up in a working-class family, so I guess you could say I write from what I know.
I want to try and be instinctive as a writer and director.
I can't remember why or how I started writing, but I think it was always a way of making sense of the world.
I'm much happier behind the camera.
For me, making films is about trying to work something out by myself in quite a lonely way. I find the whole thing very lonely really.
