Quotes from Stephen Frears

It's Marvel movies that get the big audiences.

I wouldn't want to make the same film every time. I get easily bored.

I only watch films in the cinema. I'm old fashioned. I'm a lost cause.

As a director, my job is to protect. I protect scripts, actors, cameramen, designers.

I never thought I was very good at developing material. I grew up at the BBC where they sent you scripts.

I like making films about different cultures. I'm interested in things that I've never encountered before. I try to put myself in the audience's position.

I teach film directing, inasmuch as you can. It's not really possible to teach film direction, but I sit there as a sort of testimony of experience and know-how, I suppose.

I'm a Republican, but I like the Queen. Like everyone else, I'm sentimental about the Queen.

It never crossed my mind to make a film about Muhammad Ali or the Queen or any of them! They just come out of the blue.

There's the physical life and the voice, but at some point you abandon all of that, you know what the spirit of the person is and you let it descend and just get on with it.

When I go and teach, it sort of opens me up in some way. And when you're open, you're more receptive.

I remember reading the script for 'Dangerous Liaisons' and thinking that I could quite happily spend the rest of my life watching this film; the story and the writing were so wonderful.

This black hole that people talk about in my career in the '70s, when I didn't make any films - in retrospect, what I was doing was learning my job.

When I was young, my family used to go and stay in hotels on the south coast in places like Devon. I loved those holidays because they were with my brothers, who were away at school; I really looked forward to them.

Film schools didn't exist when I was growing up. I learned by working with clever people. Good writers and cinematographers.

I have to travel for my work, so the idea of getting on planes depresses me. They give me frequent-flyer points, and I think, 'I don't want them, because I'm sick of flying!'

I have people around me. I have a semi-permanent crew. If I make a film, they just turn up. They don't even invite themselves. They don't ask if they can come - they just turn up!

Audiences aren't fools - their judgement really is important. And the true heroes of films are the investors. They take the risk, after all.

Truth is quite constricting, in a way. You endlessly see at the start of a film 'This is a true story'.

Oh, I live in London. So, whether I like it or not, I am a member of the metropolitan elite. If I were anywhere else in the country, I'd hate me.

I'm from the Midlands. I lived in London for 50 years, but I'm not sure that I think of myself as a Londoner. I can see that we're all metropolitan, whether we are Londoners or not.

I had a somewhat charmed life. I was brought up at the BBC. I did meet so many people cleverer than myself in those years. Often, I was slapped down and made to feel not good enough.

I've always found poverty a source of strength.

I can't write; I don't think I'm even particularly good at telling a writer what's good or what's missing. So, actually having someone who can do that is a godsend.