Quotes from Kevin Macdonald

As a filmmaker, I'm interminably curious and nosy, but certain times you meet people and think, 'I don't want to push you too hard because I can see this is painful for you.'

I think there's always been interest in Bob Marley.

I suppose that I'm easily bored.

Coming from documentaries, my biggest challenge was to understand actors' psychologies. American actors take it all very seriously; British actors don't enter into all this methody way of doing things.

A publisher friend of mine suggested that I write a book about my grandfather, who had just died. I had nothing else to fill my empty days with, so I started work on this book. While researching it - watching lots of movies, talking to moviemakers - I became interested in movies and started making documentaries.

You can go to places in Africa and Asia and find Marley graffiti. In the slums of Nairobi, you see his lyrics painted on walls, and you realise he has this almost religious significance to the underclass of the world. He's a guy born in a hut with no bed, and now he's probably the most listened-to artist in the world. It's fascinating.

I went to see 'Francis Ha,' which I could certainly relate to. She ends up wandering the streets of Paris all alone - something I've ended up doing a number of times in capital cities around Europe.

There's something about the lack of certainty with a documentary, which is exhausting if you do three in a row. It's nerve-wracking.

I think the parallels of a giant power with overwhelming military superiority and might, with America and Rome, it seems obvious to me.

I suppose making documentaries is like doing journalism on film.

If you can understand, you can feel compassion.

It's nice to stretch in different directions and use different muscles. You can get swallowed into Hollywood, where it's all about bums on seats and how commercial a film is.

If you want to do 'Sword & Sandals' movies, people think that means it equals 'epic.'

Elvis Presley's estate is making 30 million a year, and they say that Marley shouldn't be, but he is from a much poorer part of the world, and a lot more people need the money.

I suppose that the Western has always been a kind of mold to which you could pour the concerns of the day, but have them seen in the simple terms of the Western, of one alley or whatever.

When we made 'Life in a Day,' we asked people around the globe to record their lives on a single ordinary day. When we were cutting that film, we talked about what it might be like if we chose a day that already had significance to people. The result is 'Christmas in a Day.'

John Lennon made wonderful music, which people listen to as music. Nobody around the world is living their life according to the precepts of John Lennon.

It's obviously presumptuous in some ways to talk about somebody's sexuality who's not here to describe themselves.

I did not want to depict Al Gashey as evil. I wanted him to come across as someone who did what he did for reasons that were compelling. Whether or not we agree with him is a different matter.

I used the same designer and costume designer on 'The Eagle' and 'The Last King of Scotland.'

Put someone on a horse looking cold and wet, and they don't have to act. They just are cold and wet.

I think my brother always wanted to be a film producer.

It's always nice to have the same people that you are familiar with and shorthand with, obviously, to be around you.

I was a teenager in the '80s, and I was always a bit dismissive of Houston, as I think a lot of people who considered themselves 'cool music fans' were. She was poppy, bubble gum, making music not considered very cool. But you can't help but dance to some of those songs or feel emotionally affected by 'I Will Always Love You.'