I love singing, and I used to perform quite a lot, but now, as a director, you just tend to watch other people perform and tell them what to do.
— John Tiffany
Pinocchio's really naughty. He's all impulse: 'I want to sleep now. I want to eat that. I want to run off to Pleasure Island.' It's commedia dell'arte meets Grimm's tales.
I looked into putting 'Doctor' on my license. But the insurance premium is higher, so I don't think I'll bother.
I'm never going to stop making theatre, but I don't think I'll make it as much, because I don't need to. There are other things I want to do with my life. I want to sit by the sea in Yorkshire and eat Eccles cakes and spend time with my family.
Broadway is full of crazy people.
It blows my mind that you get Shakespeare where the 'low' comedy characters have got Northern or Welsh accents.
I don't think it's good, culturally, to base all critical judgments on a single performance.
I was pre-med at Glasgow University. I was from a family who were of the mind that if you were clever enough to be a doctor or a lawyer, why wouldn't you be?
The physicality of a production needs evolution and breath.
Whenever I'd seen Greek tragedy done with masks and declamations, it brought me out in a rash.
'Philistines' was so beautiful, and it bored me to death. I never want to see another production where the rain splashes against a window and actors wander around in drab cardigans saying, 'I'm so bored.'
Sometimes on Broadway, you don't know who the investors are, and you end up making a million dollars for somebody awful.
If you're going to be hosting any event or a performance or having dinner with people after a performance, it is work, but it's also social: food and a glass of wine would be involved often.
In film, if you've got to do a scene in a swimming pool, you do a scene in a swimming pool. If you've got to blow up a car, you blow up a car. In theater, you can't do that, and therefore, you have the opportunity to engage the audience's imagination in a way that's rich.
Trump is like an eater of worlds from an 'Avengers' movie, but there seem to be different rules for him. What are Twitter doing, for example? He's constantly breaking their rules, the sort of stuff other people get thrown off for.
The only thing I fear is when people say, 'I should go to the theatre more.' I say, 'We should create work that makes you not have a choice.'
I think associate director jobs are the best in the world, because you can do what you want and not have to take responsibility for it!
I was obsessed with theatre and loving the work of Caryl Churchill, Edward Bond, Howard Brenton, and Howard Barker, people doing real formal experimentation. But 'Road' was the first time I'd read a play written in a very true Northern dialect that seemed to have that excitement running through it.
Theatre is a living organism. You only know if your show is working when you see it with an audience. You can also tell when it isn't working - it's horrible, and you desperately try to figure out how to make it connect.
When I sold my flat in Glasgow, I bought a little cottage on the North Yorkshire coast. Whenever we go up from London to stay there, I'm just like, 'I'm home! I'm home in Bronte-land!'
When I realised, on 'The Straits,' that physical work in the theatre takes much longer than directing scenes, it was like a eureka moment. If you want to work physically, you have to accommodate it, and it takes a disproportionate amount of time.
I thought a director was like a pillow who sat under the writer, supporting them and submitting to their vision. It took me a long time to realise that what a writer really wants is a production that matches the play and the writing. It is the only way the play can achieve its full potential.
I don't know how films get made, and I think I'll leave it to other people.
I had a lovely time growing up. But I was very aware of the miners' strike going on, friends' families collapsing, and people being unemployed.
I tend to work quite a lot during the weekends. My weekend can often be about two hours on Sunday.
It couldn't interest me less, the idea of putting a living room on stage. I just think, what's the point of walking into a theater to see a living room? A sofa in a forest? Now you're talking.
I worked on new plays at the Traverse and did my best work in Scotland for years, so I never had ambitions for things like Disney.
I don't like the idea of stepping-stones in art forms: that you do your time at a regional theatre, and then you work in London and go to the West End, and then you do films. I've never felt like following that trajectory.
I don't think that just because people will pay a certain amount for a ticket that it's all right to charge it.
A first preview is not exactly a pleasant experience for directors and actors. You're never as raw as when the audience first comes in.
In theatre, previews are the first draft of a show. I strongly believe that. The only way we can truly tell whether that draft works is by having an audience present.
I never get star-struck. I never fanboy. Ever, ever, ever.
One of the things I realised as I learned to manage a rehearsal room is that the best idea always has to win, and it doesn't matter where the idea comes from.
We just don't need any more 'Macbeth's in the world, however brilliant mine might turn out to be.
'West Side Story' is one of the greatest theatrical experiences I've had.
