Quotes from Asif Kapadia

I wanted to make a film that wouldn't just appeal to Formula One fans. That's what the great sports documentaries do - 'Hoop Dreams,' 'When We Were Kings' - they're human dramas first, sport second, if at all.

I love sport, so I'd love to do more stories if I can that deal with sport maybe. Other characters, actually the real guy is so interesting why would you want to get anyone to play them?

Martin Scorsese was being given an honorary doctorate, and one of the tutors asked if there was a student film he particularly liked. He mentioned our film. There was a dinner after the final show just for the tutors, but I was smuggled in to meet Scorsese over dessert.

There's this great TV show we have called 'Later... with Jools Holland', a live-music show on Friday nights. Anyone and everyone's been on it.

The Monaco Grand Prix is in May right around the time of Cannes.

Boxing is made for film - there is corruption, violence, tragedy and the chance that the underdog can catch the champion with one lucky punch.

I was a sports fan long before I had any interest in film-making.

Hopefully, when people see 'Senna', they will understand why this inspirational story needed to be told, why it had to be made as a movie for the big screen, and why it is a film for everyone.

You can't stop people watching on mobiles, but I hope the old fashioned idea of sitting in a dark room with a big screen with a group of strangers lives on forever.

I'm an ordinary Hackney boy, and I can talk to people.

We were studying at Newport Film School, and I found that the only way for me to make films - because you need people and you need equipment - was that I had to be a student.

The subjects have to come with questions for me. I don't make films where I'm a massive fan.

A lot of the time when I'm working, I'm abroad.

For me, 'Amy' is a very dark film about love.

I don't really rely on watching video monitors. They put you at a certain distance from your actors, and it makes me feel less a part of what's really happening in the scene.

I just loved films. I knew I wanted to work on film, not video.

'Amy' is somewhere in the middle of authorized and unauthorized.

We spent four days filming in a helicopter. I had never seen London from that viewpoint - you get a sense of how big it is and how easy it is to get lost. There was one day when we couldn't find Brick Lane: we spent 25 minutes looking and then realised it was directly below us.

I worked with Michelle Yeoh on my last film, 'Far North,' and her partner is Jean Todt; at the time, he ran Ferrari. So I went as a VIP to the British grand prix.