Andrea Arnold Quotes

When your characters are really living they tell you what they do.

I work best when there is adversity: I seem to get calmer the more the fur is flying.

I always think that if you look at anyone in detail, you will have empathy for them because you recognize them as a human being, no matter what they've done.

Whenever I get fed up with life I love to go wandering in nature.

I wonder whether my bleak-o-meter is set differently from other people's. I have such passion for what I do that I can't see it as bleak. When people use that word, or “grim” or “gritty,” I just think, “Oh, come on, look a bit deeper.” My films don't give you an easy ride. I can see that. The sense I get is that people have quite a physical experience with them. They feel afterwards that they've really been through something.

I don't think you can question your instinct; you should always trust it.

I find it kind of weird that directors want to put themselves in their films.

I deliberately never read about films before I see them.

I am obsessed with why people turn out the way they are.

I just like doing things from my own head.

I read loads. There's quite a lot of stuff online.

I've always loved America.

America is a huge country, of course. It's complicated. There's good, and there's not so good, and that's the same wherever you live.

I personally love to see films not knowing very much about them. When you see it, it's like a flower opening up. I deliberately never read about films before I see them.

Sleep your way to the top.

I'm sure most of us remember being a kid and you have all of this endless time where two weeks before Christmas feels like ten years. I used to go to bed to try and go to sleep to try and make it go faster.

Interestingly, I never thought Id do an adaptation. Ive also been quite against them. I think trying to translate one medium to another is wrong. I never really felt that books fitted into film. Generally people are disappointed, arent they?

Once Ive finished a film I just want to get on and make another one.

I never write with an actor in mind - never.

I love insects. They are amazing.

A lot of people have something to say about 'Wuthering Heights,' but nobody quite nails it.

I can't remember why or how I started writing, but I think it was always a way of making sense of the world.

When I was in New York I heard many people saying that the independent film industry was in big trouble. I was reflecting on this when I came home. Realizing that ever since I started filmmaking, people have being saying that. But somehow it keeps going. Filmmakers keep going. We need stories to make sense of the world and some people like me are driven to tell them. I have faith this will always be possible.

I hear filmmakers saying, 'I wanted to make to make a film about this issue, or this theme,' but I never start like that.

I think the reality is important anyway.

I grew up with a lot of Hollywood films. Cozy farm houses, cowboys, nice flats in New York. Especially as a kid, those things have a huge impression on you.

I'm never going back to the past. It is like when I am driving - I never like to do those routes that take you backwards and make you go the long way. I always like to do the shortcuts and go forward.

Dramatically, I like darkness, I like conflict - but I don't see the world as defined by them.

For me, making films is about trying to work something out by myself in quite a lonely way. I find the whole thing very lonely really.

I don't think estates are grim places.

I don't want to think too much about me.

I grew up in a working-class family, so I guess you could say I write from what I know.

I don't read reviews.

I was never that comfortable in front of the camera, it always terrified me.

I don't feel very revengeful in life at all.

I do believe some people can naturally act and don't know it.

As long as you keep your budgets small, there's a way of making films.

Every time I start a film I feel like I'm starting the first time, ever.

Films are all about decisions, and that's what I love.

I always get quite close to my script because I work quite hard on them.