Forty years of Time Out Film interviews

Over the years Time Out has interviewed the cream of the movie world – from Woody Allen to Lars von Trier. Here are a selection of choice observations from some of the best in the business

‘You can’t make an unpolitical movie. Your politics are going to show. I mean, the fucking system has hardly a leg left to stand on, so it’s almost impossible to avoid it in movies now. We’re at the end of an era of public trust in America.’
(Warren Beatty, 1975)

‘Enormous amounts written about me aren’t true. People are careless, or they make things up. Like, everyone says I’m frail, but I’m actually a good athlete. It makes good copy, it gives them a crutch to lean on… so let ’em.’
(Woody Allen, 1977)

‘When you train your body and deal with your body, it doesn’t mean you are a homosexual. I don’t want anybody to get the impression I’m knocking homosexuality, I’m not, I don’t give a shit. What I want to do is to make Americans aware that they’re fucked up when they equate everything a person does with some sexual trip. It’s the same with bodybuilding. They think you want to build your body because you have a short cock and you’re ashamed of it.’
(Arnold Schwarzenegger, 1977)

‘The worst place I’ve ever been is Vietnam. I was having dinner out there with General Wall and I told him, “I don’t know who handles your real estate but you guys get the shittiest fuckin’ territory.” Over there, just across the fields, they’re just tossing grenades at the choppers. Sad. I used to cry for ’em.’
(Robert Mitchum, 1977)

‘Two hours of “Star Wars” must be one of the most efficient means of weaning your pre-teen child from any fear of, or sensitivity towards, the deaths of others.’
(JG Ballard, 1977)

‘To me, the body is the centre of horror. The awareness of the body, the awareness of death is the wellspring of horror. Furthermore, I am very aware of the relationship between sexuality and death. For a lot of people, their own private horror very definitely involves sexuality.’
(David Cronenberg, 1978)

‘In the ’60s we thought that cinema has to stop for a moment and begin a reflection. The idea was that in a movie you have a story, you have a character, psychology, but you also have the movie itself thinking about cinema, what cinema is.’
(Bernardo Bertolucci, 1978)

‘I have the feeling that some day it will be over with my filmmaking. In films, you have at most 15 productive years, then you are burnt out. It’s the kind of work that destroys you.’
(Werner Herzog, 1979)

‘The small film is the only way any real work can get done.’
(George Romero, 1979)

‘Shit! I don’t believe it, they have on the street here in California in these big letters, “Right Lane Must Turn Right”. When I first see it, I say, “Hey, what do you mean ‘Must’?’ I show you, I turn left and fuck you!” Then the police are behind and they stop me. They should put on my car, “Don’t bother him, he is outside society, he has nothing to do with society. As long as he does nobody any harm, let him be.” ’
(Klaus Kinski, 1982)

‘Walt Disney was my parental conscience. And my step-parent was the TV set. In an urban world everybody gets the same dose of reality every day, but in suburbia you have to create… In suburbia, kids have secrets.’
(Steven Spielberg, 1982)

‘ET, that creature… Two weeks ago I called him an ugly little fuck… and Steven went apeshit.’
(Harrison Ford, 1982)

‘It’s a cliché, you know, people say, “it’s lonely at the top”, but it’s certainly true. I come home a lot of the time and I’m basically alone. I find myself eating my dinner alone, and there’s the TV going with the sound turned down. I’m at the top, and I’m protected.’
(Martin Scorsese, 1983)

‘As a child learning to walk, you don’t think: I have a talent for walking, you just do it. Later on I became aware that I had a talent for drawing, for writing and for fucking. People ask me, “Why do you do so much exercise?”, “Why do you screw so many women?”, and it’s just because I like it.’
(Roman Polanski, 1984)

‘I’ve always felt violence was part of the aesthetic equipment of film. We’re dealing with motion pictures, with movement, chases, fights. Those things lend themselves to cinema very well. To take a moral position on them is ludicrous.’
(Brian De Palma, 1984)

‘I’m pleased to talk to Time Out again. You seem to take the film seriously and don’t just ask me dumb questions about the size of my belly.’
(Jack Nicholson, 1984)

‘All of them, all the Fords and the Carters and the Rockefellers, they all had a great-grandmother who was once a hooker in a whorehouse in New Orleans. That’s America…’
(Sergio Leone, 1984)

‘A white audience didn’t go crazy after seeing “Rambo”. I see no reason why blacks will be rioting in the streets after seeing my film.’
(Spike Lee, 1989)

‘Be like a duck, my mother used to tell me. Remain calm on the surface and paddle like hell underneath.’
(Michael Caine, 1992)

‘If I said to you that I was a spiritual man or a mystical force, would you take up your bed and follow me? I certainly bloody hope not.’
(Daniel Day-Lewis, 1994)

‘If I wear a baggy dress, I’m pregnant. If I’m too thin, I’m on drugs. You can’t win. Why isn’t the truth interesting enough?’
(Julia Roberts, 1994)

‘We decided we weren’t going to have guns in “Shallow Grave” because, thankfully, guns play very little part in our lives as a nation.’
(Danny Boyle, 1995)

‘There’s a great misconception about me, that I’m this gloomy, obsessive bugger. But it’s common knowledge that my films are always a hoot to be on.’
(Mike Leigh, 1996)

‘You know, people treat me with far too much reverence.’
(Robert De Niro, 1997)

‘I find life absurd, deep, beautiful, serious and funny all at the same time. And for my films, all of that seems appropriate.’
(Jane Campion, 2000)

‘My film is about the small things I remember, a tiny friendship that means nothing to the rest of the world. If you care about the small things in life then hopefully the audience will too.’
(Shane Meadows, 2000)

‘One of the horrors of film is that you see yourself ageing before your eyes.’
(Al Pacino, 2004)

‘The vision in Europe of Africa is very negative. It’s not the fault of Europeans, but the media, which focuses on what is negative in Africa. We’re not saying these problems don’t exist, but the truth is that there are people who are struggling and fighting – honest people.’
(Ousmane Sembène, 2004)

‘Truffaut and the others were traitors. Some of Rohmer’s films I liked; at least he has been completely true to himself. But the others didn’t follow through… Maybe it’s too big a word, but I consider them to be traitors.’
(Jean-Luc Godard, 2005)

‘It’s what I’ve said to all these directors who come to me saying, “I’m confused, what can I do?” I say, “Take a little Dogme pill. Relax and nobody will expect anything from you.”’
(Lars von Trier, 2005)

‘Hollywood has always been an extraordinary bloody place. Always. Hollywood, mainly, is a kind of shithouse. But out of this shithouse, they’ve produced the most surprising films.’
(Harold Pinter, 2007)

‘I’m as surprised as anybody when the idea pops in. If I fall in love with it, I go. It could be a straight-ahead film, it could be… who knows? Somewhere the idea’s going to swim out, and I’ll know what to do next.’
(David Lynch, 2008)

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