When I did 'Stardust,' I was fighting the studio for things I believed were right.
— Matthew Vaughn
I'm a closet geek.
High-concept one-liners were huge when I got my start in the film industry.
I was so nervous about 'Kingsman,' I can't tell you, because when you do things different and fresh and fun and crazy, you don't know how people are going to react.
I'm not an actor. I'm really bad in front of a camera. It wouldn't work.
If you do something that's different and quirky and original, it takes time for people to figure it out.
I'm not a member of a minority but I can empathize with what's going on.
I think you should make a movie that has an audience.
Music is half the film.
I think it's easier to make a film with 200 million dollars than 960 grand.
I think movies glamorize violence, in the sense that they make it in a way that it's either cool or funny.
Crime, money, power, drugs - are all linked.
And writing I think is a gift that you have, the same as acting, in a way.
You need cliches. Cliches are what people respond to.
You can't please everyone... If you make a good movie, that's all that matters.
I will never sign anything which makes me have to do more than one film.
I tried to buy the script of 'Hancock.' I loved it. The script was far darker and edgier than the movie.
Some things that work in a comic don't work in a film, and vice versa.
If it's scary, it's supposed to be scary. If it's funny, it's supposed to be funny. That's all I try to do.
I don't believe in development. I believe in pre-pre-production, so when I sit down with an idea for a movie, I'm thinking I'm going to make this film. I don't think about anything else.
I've always loved 'Bond.' There were two franchises that I would always have dropped everything to do as a director. 'Bond' was one; 'Star Wars' was other.
For me, I'm not Spielberg. I can't edit while filming another film.
I think there's a time in your life where you don't feel like you fit in. I think everyone has that when you're a teenager, especially, and especially in the society we live in.
I'm a big believer that it doesn't matter what you call your company, nobody ever notices.
People just want to watch movies that are entertaining, it doesn't matter what genre it is.
It's a juggernaut, yeah... but I'm not phased by making movies.
I like doing as many special effects in camera, as much as possible.
Some people are directors and I think they should stay behind the camera.
So I think I sometimes will put a cliche in and then just pad it out so you're not noticing.
Being a producer, I deal with a lot of different directors, and some of them would drive me insane with all the different histrionics, and the mystique that they carry.
I like the X-Men, otherwise I wouldn't be doing it.
I'm as conservative as they come.
I'm more of a comic-book movie fan than a comic book fan.
I used to be very much Jekyll-and-Hyde, where the Jekyll in me would say, 'Keep to the budget, be responsible,' and Hyde would be like ,'Ah, we can do an extra shot or an extra day.'
Most of the movies nominated for Oscars put me to sleep.
My theory is that there's a knee-jerk reaction against technology in movie making.
If you do something that's not pigeonholed, it gets thrown into the 'We don't know what this is' bin, and so let's not talk about it so much.
I was inspired by all of it. 'The Avengers,' 'Harry Palmer,' 'The Prisoner,' 'The Man from UNCLE,' 'In Like Flint.' Of course, there's a huge shadow of Bond - Bond is the monolith of spy movies - but it's not just about Bond; there were a lot of other things that influenced me.
I like the idea of making big budget films with a heart. I like graphic novels more than comic books.
I think music is what takes the experience off the screen into your soul, into your head.
So I am concerned about the amount of time we have to make it, cause it doesn't matter how much money you have, you can't create more time.
I'm a Star Wars fanatic.
What I learned very quickly is that if you get it right in the first two or three takes, it's not going to get that much better.
I'll never be a good writer, and no chance of being a good actor.
Cliches are what make you understand something.
I had a philosophy, which may have been proven right, that directing isn't as hard as everyone says it is.
You either ignore the comic book and make a great movie or you stay very close to the comic book.
