Ridley Scott Quotes

Life isn't black and white. It's a million gray areas, don't you find?

I'm not criticizing Hollywood because I work there, I partly live there. But I'm saying this is the way it is, commerce is taking over art. Commerce has become the most important thing in the film industry. Hollywood is an industry, it's not an art form, therefore they have to address the bottom line. But in a way it's sad when you get a remake, isn't it?

Blade Runner was the godfather of all these fantastic movies that occur today. What's frustrating is that we're short of really great writing and great ideas. Blade Runner was full of them.

It doesn't matter how much faith you have or don't have [in aliens]. I just don't buy the idea that we're alone. There's got to be some form of life out there.

In my view, the only way to see a film remains the way the filmmaker intended: inside a large movie theater with great sound and pristine picture.

I think one of the successes of Gladiator is how we manage to turn on a dime the character from one thing to another where you believe he is one thing and he is something very different.

But Gladiator is one of my favourite adventures because I really loved going into the world. I loved creating the world to the degree where you could almost smell it.

Once you crack the script, everything else follows.

There's nothing really original. Alien was a B-movie. Five directors passed on it before me. Because I was into Heavy Metal, I read it, and thought, "Wow, I want to do this." I was on a plane to Hollywood in 22 hours. It was a B-movie and was elevated to an A-plus movie by sheer good taste.

Never be put off by anything because failure teaches you something.

Nowadays, everything's evolved into superheroes and it's boring. If I see one more superhero movie I'm going to shoot myself.

The whole process of making movies and writing screenplays is visceral and intuitive.

Audiences are less intrigued, honestly, by battle. They're more intrigued by human relations. If you're making a film about the trappings of the period, and you're forgetting that human relationships are the most engaging part of the storytelling process, then you're in trouble.

Usually, when special effects get in the way, it's because the story isn't strong enough. If you don't start with a strong screenplay, it's easy to fall back on special effects, thinking it's going to carry you. But it never works. It's just tiresome.

How can you look at the galaxy and not feel insignificant?

I love different themes, different venues, different movies. I love to jump about and tackle different subjects. I have no intellectual master plan.

There's a little thing on your shoulder called intuition and it whispers in your ear. Everyone has that, there is a voice telling you to do something. Most people ignore it - but you must listen to it. I do it every day, all day.

Everyone sniggered because I was going to do a sandal and toga movie. But I knew exactly how to do it and I know how to make Robin Hood.

That's part of the policy: To keep switching gears.

It's the best of the best. No film can hope to top it(Kubrick's 2001).

I want to make films about the human condition, what we're doing to the world or ourselves.

Scaring someone's the hardest thing to do, and that's why most of scary movies are not scary. They're sick, but not scary. There's a lot of sickness out there, of people who then sit there and watch it, which I think is absolutely dismaying.

I'm a moviemaker, not a documentarian. I try to hit the truth.

Good FBI officers are not noticeable. You would never look at them.

People say I pay too much attention to the look of a movie but for God's sake, I'm not producing a Radio 4 Play for Today, I'm making a movie that people are going to look at.

I don't ever blink, honestly.

That's a heavy word, but picking up a newspaper every day, how can you not despair at what's happening in the world, and how we're represented as human beings? The disappointments and corruption are dismaying at every level. And the biggest source of evil is of course religion... Everyone are tearing each other apart in the name of their personal god. And the irony is, by definition, they're probably worshipping the same god.

I watched Someone to Watch Over Me the other night. I thought it was a really good movie. It's a great movie.

I think there's nothing worse than inertia. You can inert and study your navel and gradually you'll fall off the chair. I think the key is to keep flying.

Blade Runner appears regularly, two or three times a year in various shapes and forms of science fiction. It set the pace for what is essentially urban science fiction, urban future and it's why I've never re-visited that area because I feel I've done it.

I do a pretty good job at casting actually.

I think if I'm going to do a science fiction, I'm going to go down a new path that I want to do.

It's everything and I always make decisions about the cast.

And I maintain good relationships with all the studios so I've never been bullied into any cut, frankly.

I think movies are getting dumber, actually. Where it used to be 50/50, now it`s 3% good, 97% stupid.

If I have to, I'll go and direct theater and talk till the cows come home.

There's great wine from Australia, New Zealand, South Africa, Chile and, of course, California. But there's nothing like a really great French wine, they're so well balanced. The better the wine, the less you feel the effects I think.

I was always amazed about how much I could finally squeeze into a thirty second commercial.

I knew exactly what to do on Alien, it was funny.

Same thing with film, by the time you've finished shooting and you've really been into everything, you've touched up everything in the editing room. You've gone in there and taken little bits from everything.

What you do, is you gradually become more and more experienced, and more and more realistic about dramatic tolerance, i.e. about how long the play should be.

I always say to people when I'm trying to get something going, bringing on other producers or other directors, "You can think of 95 reasons why not to make a movie. You've got to address why you want to make the movie and get it done. Just do it." I tend to live by that rule.

It goes back a long way. I wanted to make Tristan + Isolde as my second movie. My first movie was The Duellists. And I was standing in a very romantic part of France looking around me thinking, "My God, this would be perfect for Tristan," and to cut a long story short it never happened because I did Alien instead.

The time it would take me to write a screenplay it would take me the time to make two films. I would rather make the movies and I'm a better moviemaker than I a would be writer.

Politics is very interesting and always leads to conflict.

I spend a lot of my time just developing material; or the company does. That material can come from a book, can come from a newspaper, can come from a discussion and sometimes it can come from a script that got passed over and is floating around.

MPC, Moving Picture Company, they're really excellent, they did the majority of the effects.

I like my wine and vodka, but that doesn't mean I fall about drunk. I know my limits.

Harrison is very much part of this one, but really it’s about finding him; he comes in in the third act.

And anyway, it's only movies. to stop me I think they'll ahve to shoot me in the head.