Roland Emmerich Quotations

It doesn't really matter if this movie's a success or not, because it's already out there.

I thought it must be pure science fiction. But when I checked it out I found a lot of magazine articles that actually supported the theory behind the book which was incredible. That's when I decided to acquire the rights of the book and everything went from there.

With Jedi, I was amazed that you could make a half a movie out of a finale.

The movie is fiction, ... We'd like to keep it that way.

It is very important to tell this story from the victims' point-of-view. I realized that with independent financing, somebody has to be the locomotive. So I'm putting my own money into it.

I also, since we have digital cameras, the blue screen composites are so good that I would rather shoot on a stage than there, especially the complicated sequences. The sun never sets in a studio stage.

The President of the United States has super star status. He's not a normal person, because he's protected like no other person in the world and if this man's life is in danger, the whole world is kind of in peril in a way, because the leader of the free world could fall into the hands of terrorists.

We have certain things where we know they exist or "everybody knows they exist," but naturally nobody can photograph them, because they are so super secret. For example, the PEOC, the Presidential Emergency Operations Center exists, but nobody knows how it looks, but it's a so called bunker where he can survive a nuclear attack.

I was actually privately in the White House like invited by Clinton to screen Independence Day, so I know how the private residence looks. I didn't snap a picture, but I have a photographic memory and then I could take a guided tour in the West Wing.

It's very, very rare you find something really original and also because a lot of original stuff, most of the time has no chance, because it's so expensive to make something famous or put it in people's head that it's the one to see, it's like awareness has to be almost like at 80% or 90% if you make an expensive summer movie and that's very hard to do with anything an the White House naturally is in itself some sort of a trademark.

I think every good, entertaining movie should have a message. I really believe that, because if you do it without it, the film feels a little bit soulless.

It's still the White House exploding [in "Independence Day"]. It was just so provocative, and no one had ever done it before. I remember when we shot it, how everyone was excited.

I'm doing a much smaller movie. It's set in Germany and it's a totally different subject matter. I'm trying to break it up.

Actually, when I did "10,000 B.C.," in the middle of production, I wanted to quit my job, because everything went wrong.

["2012"] it was really more about the subject matter, and to do a modern retelling of Noah's Ark, a flood story.

In the end [of the "2012"], there were no ships, no water, no nothing. Only the interiors [were real]. Everything else had to be made, and that is always challenging.

In the first earthquake scene [ in "2012"], there was only a limo and a plane. That was it. There was nothing else there, so everything had to be created in the computer, and that's always very difficult.

That one [in "2012"] was different because it was all CG, getting washed away by water. In "Independence Day," everything was still done in models, built in a certain scale out of plaster, and packing tons and tons of little explosives and charges in there. We had a second one in case it didn't work the first time, but it worked the first time.

There are shots that I had to walk away from because we had to get the movie in the theaters. There are some in "Independence Day" and "Godzilla," but lately I got smart. I would plan it so I had enough time [to get it right]. That just comes with experience.

A lot of stuff in Wikipedia is not true, and that goes for a lot of people. I sometimes think, "How can that happen?" But Wikipedia is maintained by people, and everybody can add stuff to it.

There are many more good stories about Jaye Davidson.

I knew that Jaye Davidson would not last because of that. I really liked him and thought he had incredible screen presence and talent, but I knew that he would not stay in that profession.

When we shot "Stargate," he [ Jaye Davidson] came up to me at one point and said, "I don't like shooting movies," and I said, "Why?" "Too many people stare at me." I said, "Then you're totally in the wrong business."

I've said that "2012" was my favorite ensemble cast, because it was so evenly good.

I always try to convince people that there has to be a lot of material about the subject matter, so they created a couple of pieces. One is about doomsday prophecies.

When it comes to action, I'd say Mel Gibson and Will [Smith] were great.

I would say, when it comes to comedy, I think Matthew Broderick was great.

I've had the pleasure to work with a lot of very great actors. And they're too different to say who's the best.

Dean [Devlin, Emmerich's partner on "Independence Day"] and I always said that we'd only do it when we had a really good story that excites us both, and we have the story written. And we've had it for a year and a half, two years. So we've been ready.

If you want to assemble the same people, then you have a big problem.

It's just one of those things. Everybody wants to do it, but it's really difficult. People had to wait for "Indy 4" for a decade, and the reason is because of the people involved.

Everybody knows that the industrialized nations are the worst offenders.

I was, it was very high. Especially with international (box office), we did something that I didn't think this movie ["2012"] would do. I was very happy.

There's not really much destruction in New York besides the weather and it's a natural force so it's not like any destruction. But LA gets leveled (laughs). That's my comment to Hollywood.

When you find something where you can give people a message and still make it an exciting movie, you get very, very excited about something. You probably even work harder than you normally do.

Do not fear. Some things will never change.

I'm finished with destroying for a while. It's not like I'm running around saying, 'What else can I destroy?'

There's a rule in Hollywood: stay away from water and stay away from snow, and I had both.

I think sport in general affects what people see in movies. I always try to explain to people in Hollywood that we have to make movies more like sport because, in sport, everything can happen and it's so much better than movies in some ways.

It's like everybody is obsessed with Hollywood movies worldwide. And even though everybody hates the Americans, they're still watching American movies.

I try to put in every one of my movies some sort of message. I don't want to overdo it, because I don't want people to get annoyed by it, but it's good to have a message.

I'm only a stupid filmmaker.

I'm a filmmaker, not a scientist.

Nobody makes movies bad on purpose.