Mike Leigh Film Quotations

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

A lot of the reasons that I'm resistant to making films in the U.S. have nothing to do with not doing a film in Hollywood, but rather to do with what I'm committed to working on in the U.K. I feel very committed to the British film industry and infrastructure.

If a film or any piece of work doesn't entertain, it fails - and that is using the word entertain literally, meaning it holds you there and you become absorbed by it so that you don't walk away and get bored and so on.

The main problem is that the Hollywood system has already made the film before the director shoots a single frame.

The problem with the British film industry is the nervousness and insecurity about - and genuflection toward - Los Angeles.

Films are made all over the world all the time and only a thin slice of that product is Hollywood.

People have been very resistant to giving me more than the standard amount of money. So I keep making films on a similar scale. Which is fine, but also frustrating.

I've walked out of films. But for every film I've ever walked out of, I've probably walked out of 500 plays.

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.

But actually I make films that I think are extremely sophisticated and cinematic.

But films should be voyeuristic. What else is a film if you're not snooping into somebody else's lives?

I'm developing the stuff all the time. There's a film in my head. I'm imagining a film.