As a filmmaker, I've sat on the other side, and I've watched when people I know have a film, and it's doing really well, and people are talking about it in all the trades, and everybody is excited about it, and I've always thought, 'Hmm, what would that be like?'
— Lenny Abrahamson
Cinema at its best can express something of the pure irreducible fact of things.
As far as the international industry is concerned, I don't think people care at all where you are from - if the work interests them.
Films should have the capacity to bring you into another world.
Generally speaking, the misfit's story is easier to tell.
In something like 'Frank,' which is a comedy, albeit a strange and emotional one, you can absolutely put in deleted scenes, and we did because they were just funny and great, but they weren't necessary in the overall structure.
When I read 'Room,' I absolutely loved it, and I thought I knew how to make it.
It's something I've noticed with my two children - children frequently know and don't know at the same time. They are aware of aspects of the world that are a little bit shadowy, and they choose not to engage with them.
I've been in rooms where people are discussing films that have yet to come out and saying delightedly, 'Oh, I've heard it's a disaster!' The jealousy is unseemly.
Frank's really different from everything I've done. Maybe the one thing that's the same, and the thing that I tend to do, is that I think I can create an intimacy with the characters, like a sense of presence with the people in the film, and that's what I tried to do in 'Room' as well.
The process of shooting - of choosing shots - is intuitive for me, and I just feel my way towards what seems right.
That's the way life is: meaning is always there, but there is no clearly given way of decoding it. Conventional cinema obscures this with an easy reduction of meaning to plot and schematic characters.
Ireland is a good place to start out as a filmmaker. If what you do is good, even at a very small scale, it will get recognized.
I'm looking for an intensity of focus. It's a bit like tuning a guitar string. You tighten and tighten, and nothing really changes until you hit that tension, and suddenly it's there: you've got a note.
I'm a bit of a late developer, generally. But the good thing about being a filmmaker is you still count as young all the way through your 40s.
People say that soundstage sets never quite look like reality. But actually, they can. They can be as real as you want as long as you pay attention to the kind of detail that is given for free in a real place.
You can throw away your script more easily than you can throw away your film.
The most conventional romantic trope of all is that you put lovers under extreme pressure, where they have to make decisions that illuminate aspects of that bond.
I don't think of myself as doing good works. It's not, 'Oh, I must give these poor people a voice.'
Shooting 'Adam & Paul' was very tough. There was barely enough time, and the budget was tiny. On top of that, we shot in dangerous locations where we had little or no control or security.
I've never worked in the U.K. television industry, but my guess it that it's a tough world for directors.
I'm Irish; I grew up in Ireland, and it's impossible to separate my background from who I am as a filmmaker.
I remember a Q&A I did in Wales where there were five people in the auditorium.
I'm not setting out to adapt books and work with books, but when really amazing stories come to you in that form, it's really hard to turn away from that.
As with any actor and any collaborator, it's about forming a trusting relationship. And that's not that you have to get him to trust you so you can get him to do what you want. Especially with a little kid, it's about making them feel really safe, and getting to know and not treating them as a puppet to be moved around.
As soon as you make some films that people like, you'll be sent material, and that can come from anywhere.
I remember as a kid being asked if I was Jewish or Irish. I said, like the glib little 15-year-old I was, 'You can be both.' Feeling very pleased with myself. Before they smacked me.
There are more ways to make 'Room' badly than well.
