Quotes from Jean-Marc Vallee

I only made one film with a score, and I hate it. I hate the score of that film. It's not coming from me. I had nothing to do with it.

I couldn't stand still at a desk for another year. I wanted to go out there and make films.

When you move handheld, and the director of photography has the courage to shoot with no lights, the set becomes a space of creativity and freedom where actors can move wherever they want to move.

There's a way of filming where you can get rid of the vanity and of trying to make something beautiful.

Rock was my thing. It influences me and moves me, and it's music that gives me ideas or wings to fly and to make films.

I was born in 1963. So the '70s were my teenage years. As a teenager, I was into rock and roll - Bowie, Rolling Stones, Pink Floyd, even more progressive music like Genesis, and I was into a lot of British rock and roll. But I loved also American rock and roll. CCR, Jimmie Hendrix, The Doors, Patty Smith, and Bob Dylan.

I'm such a music geek, a music freak. I wake up in the morning, I press play.

When I see great film, I have this feeling of 'Oh, wow! Wasn't that great? Wasn't that good?' I want to do something. I want to scream and go out there and participate and embrace life.

When I do a mix tape for my kids, for my friends, for my lover, I meticulously choose the tracks, and it's beautiful. And when they are alone they think of me - and when I am alone I think of them.

Just film what's there, trust what came before, one hour before, and make it easy.

I'm from the 'less is more' school. I had to be in the 'more is more' zone with 'Dallas Buyers Club', so I was out of my comfort zone, but I had to trust that.

Adam Scott sings like a bird... He's so bad. He's so bad.

I love those films where I feel the director's confidence - where he doesn't need to overdo it with the shots and the cuts.

It can be a machine. The machine tries to make money and forget about the heart and the art. Hollywood is more about making money.

Filmmaking is so heavy: there are so many people and trucks and teamsters and costume people and hair people and makeup people. I try to make it light and as simple as possible. It's great for actors. It puts the story up front. It's not about shots and dollies and lighting and sets.

When you hear a solo piano, there's a solitude about just one instrument playing. It can be beautiful; it can be sad.

I have two sons, and at 16, they were into Zeppelin, Pink Floyd, David Bowie, and a lot of British rock.

Whether it's in America, Quebec, or France, if I can tell a story that takes me out of my comfort zone, then I'm surfing.

Directing on a 90-day schedule, whether for a TV series or a feature film, it's crazy; it's a marathon.

In a career, when you hit 40 and you've done a lot of this and that, you want to try some new things. I feel like that as a director, too, from one film to the other.

I respect the British a lot - their history, their past, their culture. I think it's beautiful, what they have with the monarchy.

I'm always aiming for some magic in films if I can find a mystical quality either in a song or in a moment or a character's intention.

'Sharp Objects' was scary, unknown territory for me. I wouldn't pick this kind of material to direct if you just gave me the book. Amy Adams was the force that drove me in.

I was attached to 'Sharp Objects' before 'Big Little Lies,' actually.