Quotes from Ridley Scott

I think there are a lot of men who feel they're being emasculated by having the woman be in charge; I've never had that problem.

I didn't want to go down the route of spending a year of my life making a movie that would never be seen. I may as well go down a route making a film that a lot of people will see, which is the whole idea behind cinema.

If studios don't get their money back, we don't have any movies. So it is important that films are successful, and I am fully supportive of that because I'm not just a director, I'm also not stupid. I've been in this business long enough and, to a certain extent, I'm a businessman; I know the importance of that.

I'm fundamentally a positive person. Otherwise, I wouldn't be doing some of the insane movies that I do.

You don't really know what you're going to get until you're actually in Abbey Road. That's where I did all the music, in The Beatles' place.

People say I pay too much attention to the look of a movie but for God's sake, I'm not producing a Radio 4 Play for Today, I'm making a movie that people are going to look at.

I do a pretty good job at casting actually.

A good year for me is when me and my family are in good health. I'm just lucky to have good years doing something I like to do.

Blade Runner was the godfather of all these fantastic movies that occur today. What's frustrating is that we're short of really great writing and great ideas. Blade Runner was full of them.

When you're in the editing room, the dangerous thing is that it becomes like telling a joke again and again and again. Eventually, the joke starts to not be funny. So you have to be careful that you're not throwing the baby out with the bath water.

I would make a film with a political point of view if I agreed with it, and even, perhaps, if I didn't.

I have a healthy competitive nature.

Politics is very interesting and always leads to conflict.

Conscience, the power of conscience, can unearth all kinds of things.

The very first film I ever saw was a pirate movie called 'The Black Swan' with Tyrone Power. And I thought that was great stuff. Of course, in those days, Technicolor was really Technicolor; there was no such thing as desaturation. Everybody looked super suntanned.

That's part of the policy: To keep switching gears.

There's a big film industry in Egypt, and quite a big one in Syria, and there's a big Muslim community in Paris.

And I maintain good relationships with all the studios so I've never been bullied into any cut, frankly.

I am in a constant stage of development.

The key thing is you can be the only person, your own critic.

I was one of those kids who tended to stay in on Saturday nights. My mother used to come and say, 'Why don't you go to the dance with the boys?' And I'm going, 'No, I'm perfectly happy.' I think my parents thought I was definitely weird.

'Alien' is a C film elevated to an A film, honestly, by it being well done and a great monster. If it hadn't had that great monster, even with a wonderful cast, it wouldn't have been as good, I don't think.

'The Duellists' won Cannes, but Paramount didn't know how to release a film about two guys in bizarre breeches, waving swords around. I actually think it's a pretty good Western.

I want to return to the epic idea of the grand, big Western, in the sense that 'The Searchers' was.