Ben Wheatley Quotes

• If you judge everything by how photographically real it looks, then you're missing out on a lot of what art is about and what communication is. There are ambiguities in life, and that should be reflected in art, cinema, and storytelling, I think.

  Ben Wheatley

  Art, Real, Communication

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• The reality of any location in Britain being used in a TV program of a film is that something bad is going to happen! That's the nature of drama. Most of the things that get made or basically grisly detective shows about murders, accidents or medical dramas.

  Ben Wheatley

  Drama, Reality, Detectives

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• The only genre I have any problem with is musicals, but that's just my own tastes it's nothing to do with the films.

  Ben Wheatley

  Taste, Problem, Film

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• People say, "How do you get into the British film industry?" There is no British film industry, there are just people making films and finding their own way. It's not like in the States where there are studios and there's an actual infrastructure to it; there's just nothing here. You make it from scratch a lot of the time.

  Ben Wheatley

  People, Scratches, Way

  Source: www.interviewmagazine.com

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• Doctor Who is pretty dark, I think. Generally its dark; its always been dark.

  Ben Wheatley

  Dark, Thinking, Doctors

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• I think CGI is interesting but it's too expensive and limiting in terms of what you can do shot-by-shot.

  Ben Wheatley

  Thinking, Interesting, Shots

  "Ben Wheatley's 'Freakshift' to shoot in 2014 with American cast". Interview with Will Dix, www.digitalspy.com. July 19, 2013.

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• The things that inspire people to think are what keeps a film alive.

  Ben Wheatley

  Thinking, People, Inspire

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• I genuinely try to make movies I'd want to go and see, movies that are a bit more challenging.

  Ben Wheatley

  Challenges, Trying

  Source: www.indielondon.co.uk

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• If I'd been offered 'Spider-Man,' I probably would have done it. I don't think it's bad to go and do those things.

  Ben Wheatley

  Men, Thinking, Spiders

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• There's no way you can shoot low-budget stuff on lots of locations. It's just a practicality thing because every time you move, it costs time and money.

  Ben Wheatley

  Moving, Cost, Stuff

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• You can muscle your way to the top as long as you're part of the production, which I am. I'm knitted into the money, so it's very hard to extricate me from the decision-making dynamic.

  Ben Wheatley

  Long, Decision, Way

  "Ben Wheatley: master of the macabre". Interview with Alex Godfrey, www.theguardian.com. June 22, 2013.

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• I like that confusion when people are speaking in the same language but still can't understand each other. It's also usually my experience of being in America - when I speak no one can understand what I'm saying.

  Ben Wheatley

  People, Confusion, Language

  Source: www.interviewmagazine.com

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• It's part of developing the whole state of how cinema is; everyone is looking out and engaged rather than it being just a financial thing or sitting back, waiting for scripts to turn up.

  Ben Wheatley

  Waiting, Cinema, Sitting

  Source: www.interviewmagazine.com

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• I think a big part of my job is to make an atmosphere on set and have an attitude that it's about experimentation, and you can't do anything wrong. It's not about judgment, it's not about me kicking over a chair and storming onto set and acting stuff out and telling people to copy what I do. That is a style of directing some people have, but I don't understand it.

  Ben Wheatley

  Jobs, Attitude, Thinking

  Source: www.interviewmagazine.com

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• I tend to shoot really quick so you don't get the problems you might get on a traditional film where you shoot one way, then another, and it's pissing down with rain and they won't cut together. We shoot so fast we can incorporate the weather into it. The worst weather we had was when they were in the caravan up the mountain and there was no cover. One man's weather is another man's production value. To create the sleet would cost a fortune but we got it for free so we'll just have to go with it.

  Ben Wheatley

  Rain, Cutting, Together

  Source: www.indielondon.co.uk

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• If you make a movie in the UK you've got to embrace the weather with open arms... We got some of the most amazing weather as well. It's maybe why some of these places, like the Lake District, don't get filmed in so much. If you were trying to make it look like some kind of chocolate box image of England you'd be there all year waiting for the sun to come out.

  Ben Wheatley

  Waiting, Chocolate, Trying

  Source: www.indielondon.co.uk

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• If an actor commits properly to a role, they do a bit mad during a shoot. If they're going to do that, they should balance themselves by doing a role as a yoga teacher.

  Ben Wheatley

  Teacher, Yoga, Mad

  Source: www.hollywoodchicago.com

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• Lots of crime films are about work. Free Fire could have been about a company of plumbers doing pipe-fixing and stuff. But the plumbing film is not so exciting.

  Ben Wheatley

  Film, Crime, Exciting

  Source: www.rollingstone.com

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• I've had pretty much the same crew for all the films that I've made, and I've managed to have really nice, calm, funny people. That is a big part of it, a family feeling of warmth and finding something interesting and making a platform for them to perform. It's a very difficult job, acting, in that it's totally counterintuitive to how we are brought up.

  Ben Wheatley

  Jobs, Nice, People

  Source: www.interviewmagazine.com

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• I'm very superstitious about going on other people's sets. You have to ask permission of the director; you shouldn't just turn up and skulk about in the background. It's very rude. You have to ask them personally. It's like a vampire being invited into a house.

  Ben Wheatley

  People, House, Rude

  Source: www.interviewmagazine.com

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• Film is more of a dream when you're younger. I found it almost impossible to see how you would get into the industry having no connections, nobody in the family being anywhere near it and never meeting anybody that had been on a set.

  Ben Wheatley

  Dream, Connections, Impossible

  Source: www.interviewmagazine.com

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• Sometimes my scripts get so dissolved, and they're so different from when I wrote them originally, that I find it hard to find what I wrote in it.

  Ben Wheatley

  Different, Scripts, Sometimes

  Source: www.interviewmagazine.com

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• Society is about masks and hiding and pretending to be something that you're not and not opening up, and in acting, you do all of those things, but it also shows the performers in a very raw state. They have to literally upset themselves to get to that position sometimes. You don't need a load of people judging you or not being interested in what you're doing or being an ass on set because it ruins it.

  Ben Wheatley

  Opening Up, People, Judging

  Source: www.interviewmagazine.com

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