Quotes from Mike Leigh

I hope I make films where you walk away . . . with work to do, arguments to have, things to worry about, things to care about. In that sense, I would regard what I do as political.

My work is about life as you and I experience it. You're either lucky or you're not lucky; either your relationship works or it doesn't.

The way an actor is trained doesn't ultimately have much bearing on my work. I'm interested in the actor as artist.

My work requires acting at its most committed - it demands actors of enormous resilience, but also intelligence and wit. It doesn't work for narcissistic or selfish actors.

You will find hardly any improvising on camera anywhere in my films. It's very structured, but it's all worked out from elaborate improvisations over a long period, as you know.

My job apart from anything else is to build an ensemble composed of actors who all come from a secure place so that they can all work together to make the film.

The reason my films work is because every actor on set is very secure. They're able to fly.

One of the reasons the whole Hollywood way of making films wouldn't work for me is because the way I operate would be anathema to anyone who wants to hold a job down in Beverly Hills.

The notion that acting is simply about intuitively responding to situations the way you feel couldn't be farther away from how I ask actors to work.

Resolve is never stronger than in the morning after the night it was never weaker.

My work is about life as you and I experience it. You're either lucky or you're not lucky either your relationship works or it doesn't.

My work requires acting at its most committed - it demands actors of enormous resilience, but also intelligence and wit. It doesn't work for narcissistic or selfish actors.

The whole thing about making films in an organic film on location is that it's not all about characters, relationships and themes, it's also about place and the poetry of place. It's about the spirit of what you find, the accidents of what you stumble across.

Resolve was never stronger than in the morning, after the night, when it was never weaker

Louise: "How did you get here?" Johnny: "Well, basically, there was this little dot, right? And the dot went bang and the bang expanded. Energy formed into matter, matter cooled, matter lived, the amoeba to fish, to fish to fowl, to fowl to frog, to frog to mammal, the mammal to monkey, to monkey to man, amo amas amat, quid pro quo, memento mori, ad infinitum, sprinkle on a little bit of grated cheese and leave under the grill till Doomsday.

one day you'll realize that you've had not just one or two past or future existences... but that you were, and are, everybody and everything that has ever been... or will ever be.

Louise: "How did you get here?" Johnny: "Well, basically, there was this little dot, right? And the dot went bang and the bang expanded. Energy formed into matter, matter cooled, matter lived, the amoeba to fish, to fish to fowl, to fowl to frog, to frog to mammal, the mammal to monkey, to monkey to man, amo amas amat, quid pro quo, memento mori, ad infinitum, sprinkle on a little bit of grated cheese and leave under the grill till Doomsday." ~From the movie Naked, written by

no matter how many books you read, there is something in this world that you never ever ever ever ever fucking understand.

There's something inherently disappointing about success,' from Topsy-Turvy, a Mike Leigh film about Gilbert and Sullivan.