Quotes from Scott Derrickson

I love the comics so much, and I grew up reading Marvel Comics. And Doctor Strange is my favorite comic book character - probably, I think honestly, the only comic book I would feel personally suited to work on.

In my films, I either want the music to be very subtle and very buried or just put it right out in front and be super blunt with it.

I always liked the idea in 'Potter' that you don't choose the wand, the wand chooses you, and that relics decide when you're ready to handle them. I'm a cinephile first and a filmmaker second, and it's all swimming in the subconscious.

The role that blood plays in Christian iconography is huge - the washing of the blood, the shedding of blood, the blood of the cross, the crucifixion, the violence of that imagery. These are horrific, and yet they are at the center of the Christian faith. There is a place where beauty and terror merge, and it's at the cross.

The more frightening and sort of dark and oppressive a movie is, the more free you are to explore the supernatural and explore faith. The two just somehow go hand-in-hand really nicely.

Real Super 8 is creepy. If you went into your grandmother's attic and found her Super 8 films and watched them, I don't care what was on them, there would be something a little creepy feeling about it.

We've all watched hundreds of movies from characters' points of view that are not our own. That's part of the gift movies give us.

'Emily Rose' was based on a real story, and the real girl died, and there were surviving members of the family, so I took the concerns of that very seriously.

Screenplays are the currency of Hollywood.

I think the Christ-myth stories make great stories, whether it's 'The Matrix' or 'Braveheart,' they all are tapping into some kind of deep myth in our DNA, and by myth I don't necessarily mean false.

I'm not a dispensationalist - I don't believe in the Rapture. I think it's an unbiblical doctrine, and in North American Christianity, at least, it is the teaching that is the root of much of our subculturalism.

Some of the most intelligent people I've met in my life are priests and pastors; now, a lot of them aren't that, though. Some of the most sanctimonious and hypocritical people I've met are priests and pastors, also.

When I was hired to write and direct a movie, my Christian duty suddenly became quite clear: My primary duty as a Christian in Hollywood is to do my job well.

Interestingly enough, there is a really different dynamic when you're directing something that somebody else has written compared to when you're directing something that you've written. And there's a good and a bad side to it. I think the bad side is that you never feel the same level of connection to the material - you just don't.

People always complain that superhero movies end with a big fight scene where they're tearing up a city, and there's a portal opening up, and they have to close it... I wanted to have a climactic scene that subverted those familiar ideas.

My understanding of religion and science is that they're both arrogant schools of thought, and whether they acknowledge it or not they continually broadcast the idea that they have the world figured out. And what they don't know, they have a theory for which is probably correct. It feels like that shrinks the world, rather than expands it.

I certainly hope they let me make another 'Doctor Strange.' I would do it in a second. I love this character. It's been the best filmmaking experience of my career; I work really well with these guys. It was a rewarding, collaborative process that I would do again in a second.

I think that Hollywood is a very liberal community, and the great thing about that is that it tends to be relatively open to letting people think and believe what they want to think and believe.

I think religion is as flawed an enterprise as any other human endeavor, but the interests and ambitions of religion are the right interests and ambitions.

I'm an orthodox Christian. When people ask me if I'm a Christian, I always want to qualify and know what they mean by that. I'm not a Republican, and I'm not right wing. I'm not a dispensationalist. I don't think the world's about to end.

I think a lot of my appreciation for the Doors' music, which I love, originates with my discovery of them through seeing 'Apocalypse Now.' It's my second favorite film of all time.

I'm not interested in gothic storytelling or the horrific for its own sake. I'm always interested in it as a way of getting at larger ideas or important meaning. And you don't see that as much as you'd think in the history of horror cinema. A lot of times, it's scariness for scariness' own sake.

I really love horror novels, horror films, that are pointing at deeper ideas and thematic meaning. It's a way of thinking about films differently; that's what I think I like the most about it. I love the fact that's it's pointing at a more mysterious world - that the world is more of a mysterious place than we tend to let ourselves believe.

What I desire most in my life is to become a better person. I genuinely want to be good.