Quotes by Paul Haggis

About Paul Haggis:

Paul Edward Haggis is a Canadian screenwriter, producer, and director. He is best known as screenwriter and producer for consecutive Best Picture Oscar winners, 2004's Million Dollar Baby and 2005's Crash, the latter of which he also directed.
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I don't pay much attention to the press. My films always get good reviews and bad reviews. I just try to make the best film I can.

Paul Haggis

I have never pretended to be the best Scientologist, but I openly and vigorously defended the church whenever it was criticized, as I railed against the kind of intolerance that I believed was directed against it. I had my disagreements, but I dealt ...

Paul Haggis

For me, the most interesting people are ones who often work against their best interests. Bad choices. They go in directions where you go, 'No no no nooo!' You push away someone who is trying to love you, you hurt someone who's trying to get your tru...

Paul Haggis

I like to write about things about which I have no answers, questions that trouble me. These things trouble me.

Paul Haggis

I miss my mother very, very much.

Paul Haggis

We all have these tendencies in us that could go this way or that. I think that's the real key in writing. To look at a character without judgment.

Paul Haggis

We give you characters we'd feel very comfortable judging, and then go: 'Oh yeah? Watch this'.

Paul Haggis

Even in a comedy, you have to make people feel. You have to put your hand inside their soul and twist out their heart.

Paul Haggis

In Scientology, in the Ethics Conditions, as you go down from Normal through Doubt, then you get to Enemy, and, finally, near the bottom, there is Treason.

Paul Haggis

The wonderful thing about Clint is you can never second guess how he is going to react to anything.

Paul Haggis

I try not to think of actors as I'm writing because I think you do them a disservice by writing for things they've already done.

Paul Haggis

I'm a deeply broken person, and broken institutions fascinate me.

Paul Haggis

I'm such an antsy type of person. I can't write in a room without other people around. I write in coffee shops.

Paul Haggis

I like it when an actor is secure enough to ask questions, and the director is secure enough not to be threatened by that.

Paul Haggis

Film is an emotional medium; it's not a logical medium. It's not an intellectual medium, so every decision you make as a filmmaker and an actor has to be emotional in some way, even in the rejection of logic.

Paul Haggis

Irish and Italian are my two favourite people.

Paul Haggis

Unless I'm really uneasy with what I'm writing, I lose interest very quickly.

Paul Haggis

We're trying to reinvent Bond. He's 28 - no Q, no gadgets.

Paul Haggis

There's nothing more painful than writing.

Paul Haggis

You don't make a film because the audience is ready for it. You make a film because you have questions that are in your gut.

Paul Haggis

Author Bio

  • NamePaul Haggis
  • DescriptionCanadian screenwriter, producer, and director
  • AliasesPaul Edward Haggis
  • BornMarch 10, 1953
  • CountryCanada
  • ProfessionScreenwriter; Film Producer; Film Director
  • AwardsAcademy Award For Best Writing (Original Screenplay); Writers Guild Of America Award; Primetime Emmy Award