Paul Greengrass Quotations

Why are people saying it's too soon? Like the people on that flight, we need to agree about what to do about terrorism. And I think we need to have that conversation now.

Remembering is painful, it's difficult, but it can be inspiring and it can give wisdom.

The people who went on that airplane were unexceptional.

In the end, it's acting, it's not real. But every director will tell you that you have to create conditions that create tension, because tension is what makes drama feel real.

If in this film, it can provoke a little more discussion about where we've come from on 9/11 and where we're going to. Then I'll be proud.

There is a great debate going on on where we are going in the post-9/11 world. This is part of the process of filmmakers saying, 'We would like to join that conversation'.

It is not acting. The memory is so burned into his mind.

That final image haunts me -- a physical struggle for the controls of a gasoline-fueled 21st-Century flying machine between a band of suicidal religious fanatics and a group of innocents drawn from amongst us all. It's really, in a way, the struggle for our world today.

Films don't change the world, but they can make people talk. And they can make you look at the world with fresh eyes. This movie provides a credible, authentic portrait of that day, and it allows us to draw some wisdom from it. Wherever you sit politically, we are all in that same stage of being wounded and trying to figure what to do next. Those people on United 93 had the courage to confront what we're all dealing with. The question is, do we?

We expect our movie stars to do extraordinary things, because they're iconic. But to capture the measure of achievement of those people on that airplane, it was essential to believe they were as ordinary as you or I.

Is it word-for-word the same? No, of course it's not.

They all saw it, and they all approve of it.

Sometimes, those sort of details are not what shows up on screen. It's about what it does to the inner confidence of the actor.

Some people will not want to see the film. People find the subject too hard. I respect that. Remembering is painful. But it can be inspiring and it can bring wisdom.

There were two stages of it. The sort of staggering enormity of that second plane - when you realized that this was obviously deliberate, and then all of a sudden, a lull sort of sank in for 20 minutes or half an hour. And then that really frightening thing when the Pentagon got struck. You just thought, where is this gonna end?

It's humbling to bring this film to New York. It's humbling and necessary and appropriate.

I wanted to make it feel real, like you were there, so you would understand the pressures people faced inside the air-traffic control rooms, inside the military command center, inside that airplane.

They were the first people to inhabit the post-9/11 world. These were the first to react to the worldwide conflict we find ourselves in today.

They were the first people to inhabit the post-9/11 world.

They'll see it's been made in a responsible fashion by serious people. And I hope they will see it's making a contribution to a very necessary debate.

Acting is many things. Acting is playing lines, of course, but it's much more profound than that. Acting is truth-telling, and trying to find the truth in a human situation, which will be sketched out by a screenwriter with all the skill that a screenwriter can do; but in the end, that's just the map of the journey. The actor's job is to divine and embody the truth, and find it.

That's one of the central challenges we face - how to stay true to events and compress the fundamentals.

The actor's job is to divine and embody the truth, and find it.

All directors make films in individual ways. But the classical kind of view of filmmaking is that you have a script and it's very linear.

There's a script, then you're going to shoot the script and then you cut that and then that's the end of the film. And that's never really been how I've seen it.

Most of the films that I've written, made in my life, I've written. Not all, but most I would say.

You're trying to create a screenplay and your screenplay is there to give you a structure, rigidity, situational awareness, who the characters are, what do they want, what's the shape of the thing.

I think when you think of my films, I think hopefully you think of an extreme sort of real unfolding, real-time, performed, feeling semi-improvised, you know what I mean, all that.

I always try and bring screenplay, shooting and editing into a sort of symbiotic - as close into alignment as you possibly can get them, consistent, obviously, with the resources that you've got and the time you've got available.

You sort of can't talk about the post production unless you talk about what comes first.

You face challenges and you have to make choices. You're weighing the necessary responsibility toward reality and authenticity and of course the need to create a compressed drama over two hours.

There's a film you write, there's a film you shoot, and there's a film that you cut - and they're all different.

The events of 9/11 had a massive effect on me, like everyone, and I wanted to use my position as a filmmaker to contribute something so they are not casually forgotten. By honoring the families who lost those they loved, I hope we can ensure that their sacrifice is remembered and hopefully seek wisdom in the future.