Quotes from Kevin Macdonald

I don't read many young adult books.

I was fascinated by making a submarine movie, inspired by the Kursk disaster. This idea of being trapped down at the bottom of the sea seemed so terrifying. I was very interested in making a sub film which wasn't a military film. You think, Well, why are they there, then, if they're not in the military? Oh, well, they must be looking for treasure.

I always loved digging away at the story, trying to find out things that people don't want you to find out and piecing it all together. I love the treasure hunt aspect of it, the thrill of the chase.

What got me into making movies was that I wanted to be a journalist.

My grandfather died before I started making films, but I definitely learnt this from him: believe in your own judgment and stick to your guns - 99% of the time, you'll be glad you did.

We're all fascinated by the way other people live their lives, how they cope with hardship and triumph, what they put in their home movies and family albums.

The first documentary I saw that tried to show the actual experience of being a soldier in combat was 'The Anderson Platoon,' by French director Pierre Schoendoerffer, which won the Oscar for best documentary in 1967.

With fiction, I've grown to really love the challenge of lying, the challenge of telling a good tale that isn't truthful, and working with performers is endlessly fascinating. You know, learning what a good performance is, how to get a good performance, how much or how little you need to create emotion or to create character.

It's interesting to me that the Arab Spring started in Tunisia, and in the marches, people were singing 'Get up, stand up, stand up for your rights.'

I find it really difficult when you make a movie where it is set in Russia and everyone speaks in English. It drives me crazy.

You can get good performances in quite sizable roles from people who have never been in front of a camera, people who maybe have never been in front of a movie theater.

If you go to pretty much everywhere in the developing world, you will find Bob Marley murals, and you'll find people playing his music.

Despite the limitations of the bulky 16mm camera and 10-minute film magazines, 'The Anderson Platoon' feels as spontaneous and fresh as any films that have come out of the Afghan or Iraq wars.

I was born at Rotten Row in Glasgow and brought up in Loch Lomond near a small place called Gartocharn. And it's a bit like anyone: where you're brought up, you have an irresistible attraction to that place; it defines who you are.

The Internet has meant that advertising has migrated; there are hardly any classifieds in newspapers any more because they're all online. If people have a car to sell, for example, they sell it online; they don't go to the newspaper.

In my early career as a documentarian, I suppose I was trying to make films which - where it was all about making a big cinematic statement, and I think with 'Marley,' I slightly changed my direction and adopted a more mellow approach.

I'm a cynical person who's normally attracted to the dark side of things.

If there is a tendency in modern television I hate, it is the unstoppable march of the dramatic reconstruction to tell the stories of anything from an ancient Egyptian battle to the early life of Paul Gascoigne.

For everybody in the world, the answers to the mysteries in your life usually lie in your childhood, your upbringing, and your parents.

When I was growing up on Loch Lomondside, one of the first albums I ever bought was Marley's 'Uprising.' I guess that would have been 1980 - just before he died.

'Uprising' was one of the first three or four albums I ever bought in 1980 when I was 13, and that had a strong impact on me.

If there's a principle really worth sticking up for, I'll go the whole way.

Like a lot of expatriate Scots, when you want to be called Scottish, it's useful. I see myself as being without nationality, as a European: my region is Scotland; my nationality is European - isn't that a very Alex Salmond thing to say?

It feels like we're all so familiar now with the traditional three-act structure that, actually, stories that are more complex, more naughty, that allow for disagreement and discussion, are more interesting to us.