Quotes by Stephen Daldry

About Stephen Daldry:

Stephen David Daldry is an English director and producer of both film and theatre. He has won the Tony Award for his work on Broadway, and has directed several feature films that have been nominated for Best Director and/or Best Picture at the Academy Awards. These films are Billy Elliot (2000), The Hours (2002), The Reader (2008) and Extremely Loud and Incredibly Close (2011).
A B C D E F G H I J K L M N O P Q R S T U V W X Y Z

I never want to make a film. I don't wake up in the morning going, 'Ooh, I'd really love to be on set making a film today'. I'm aware that other contemporary film directors perceive film-making as what they do, as what they have to do. But I would ho...

Stephen Daldry

I spent a little time in Germany as a schoolboy learning German, and it's a country I knew very well, spent a lot of time in. I knew the history very well. I've always wanted to do a piece of work about the post-war period, of one sort or another.

Stephen Daldry

I am, in fact, Superman. Every morning I wake up and go into a telephone booth and change my costume, and then go to work.

Stephen Daldry

The great fun of doing new plays is that people have no idea what's going to happen next. That goes quite soon, as people start talking about it, and the only way you can keep hold of that is genuinely to keep changing it.

Stephen Daldry

One of the great joys of my job is that you spend a huge amount of time investigating different areas of literature.

Stephen Daldry

I'm not really a director for hire. You read these scripts and go, 'This is a really great script, but Paul Greengrass would make this so much better than me.' I usually say, 'I know who would be good for this. It's not me.'

Stephen Daldry

I categorically resist this idea that films are supposed to be autobiographical and the only stories you tell are about your own life.

Stephen Daldry

At school, I decided I wanted to be a director and then I went out and spent the rest of my adult life trying to be a director. It was really clear to me. So in that sense I was very lucky.

Stephen Daldry

The really successful work in England tends to be working-class writers telling working-class stories. The film industry has been slow to wake up to that, for a variety of reasons. It still shocks me how few films are written or made in England about...

Stephen Daldry

I have never been motivated by money in my life. You can't make choices based on what the financial return might be.

Stephen Daldry

Actually, to be honest, this is a useful time to not be knowing what I'll be doing in 2013 or 2014, because really, for the last however many years, I've known what I've been doing for years and years ahead. You get into a cycle of non-reflection, an...

Stephen Daldry

If I wanted to work financially, I would have made a series of different choices. I do get offered lots of movies which you could make a lot of money out of. And I always say, 'Why would I do that, when someone else could do it much better than me? W...

Stephen Daldry

The truth of the matter is, every film is imperfect. It's the nature of the beast. One of the things that people ask me all the time is, what's the difference between theater and film, and one of the biggest differences is, in the theater you always ...

Stephen Daldry

There are a few writers that one has a relationship with that means, basically, you do whatever they say. One is Caryl Churchill, and the other is David Hare.

Stephen Daldry

I love test screenings. Some directors don't, I know. But I love it. I think it's because I come from the theatre and in the theatre, previews are where you really have to listen to the audience and really feel how they're responding. I found our tes...

Stephen Daldry

I love changing. I hate it when people try to box me in to a relationship or in a work context. Any situation where I feel boxed in freaks me out. And I feel the need to reinvent myself or I'll get bored.

Stephen Daldry

I would love to do something for TV... I wanna do 'Kavalier & Clay' on HBO as an eight-parter. It'll be so much better as a series, honestly.

Stephen Daldry

Ring up your parents and ring up your kids and tell them that you love them.

Stephen Daldry

I'm a theatre person, that's who I am. I'm happy to make sojourns into the world of movies but I'm basically a theatre director that potters off and does a couple of movies.

Stephen Daldry

You go through a process of refinement and getting rid of the excesses of your early youth in terms of your excitement about what theatre can do.

Stephen Daldry

Author Bio

  • NameStephen Daldry
  • DescriptionBritish director
  • BornMay 2, 1961
  • CountryUnited Kingdom
  • ProfessionFilm Director; Film Producer
  • AwardsLaurence Olivier Award; Commander Of The Order Of The British Empire