Quotes from Anton Corbijn

I've finally become an old guy.

Directing film is the hardest thing I have ever done.

My life changed incredibly when I moved from Holland to England.

I don't want to continue to do what I did when I was 20. I would like to continue to develop myself and not continue to hang around with bands.

I'm not totally blind to the fact that I like people to see my work, but if it's not something I would enjoy seeing in a magazine, then I think I shouldn't be making it. I think that I don't represent only myself, I represent more people; I mean, if I like it, then I think more people will like it because I think I'm quite a normal guy.

I think Amsterdam is to Holland what New York is to America in a sense. It's a metropolis, so it's representative of Holland, but only a part of it - you know, it's more extreme, there's more happening, it's more liberal and more daring than the countryside in Holland is.

I'm not famous; I am simply very well-known to certain people. Famous is something different.

I wanted to do a film for a while, but I never found a script that I felt I was going to be the right person for; because if you've never made a film, you're not taught how to make a film, and you feel like you lack skills.

Working with actors is something I've never done before. I find it tremendous. It's hard work.

I'm not educated as a filmmaker, so it's quite a jump for me.

My world is much bigger than music, and that's why I always fight the 'rock' label.

If you make something with love and, you know, passion and you tell a real story, I think it will always find an audience somehow, you know.

I think if you don't feel passionate about the first movie you're doing, in the end the project will lack something because you don't have enough experience to make the movie something special.

I have never understood models. I find it really hard to find beauty in that or to discover beauty because the beauty was so obvious.

For me N.M.E. was a very big thing. When I first came to the United Kingdom I started taking pictures for them and I became their main photographer for five years, and that's really been the basis of everything I've been doing since.

I wanted to move away from Holland for my work because I felt that things would be better for me in England. But when I heard Joy Division's 'Unknown Pleasures', that pushed me towards making the move and making it real. I met them within 12 days of moving to England.

I feel a responsibility to myself, and not so much for the world at large. Because of my Calvinistic upbringing, I was trained to think that what you do has to have a purpose.

I don't have lights, I don't have assistants, I just go and meet somebody and take a photograph. That's really basic, and that's how I used to work when I was 17 or 18 in Holland.

It's so easy for people to stick a label on you, and then that taints everything you touch.

I only make storyboards for action scenes. Once you make a storyboard, you don't film; it can be a stiff move.

For many years I wanted to do a film, but I never had the courage to clear my desk and say, 'OK I'll take a year off and do a film.'

If you're an artist, it's OK to put your money into your art. The advantage, in hindsight, is that you become the film, and the film becomes you; you breathe it.

I don't think I treat my film work as an extension of my photography. There are two different sets of rules there.

I didn't really know how to make a film when I made 'Control'. I had to create my own language, just as I did when I started taking photographs. I never studied either one.