Sam Mendes
Sam Mendes
Samuel Alexander "Sam" Mendes, CBE is an English stage and film director. He is best known for directing the comedy-drama film American Beauty, which earned him the Academy Award and Golden Globe Award for Best Director, the crime film Road to Perdition, and the James Bond films Skyfalland Spectre. He also is known for dark re-inventions of the stage musicals Cabaret, Oliver!, Company, and Gypsy. He directed an original stage musical for the first time with Charlie and the Chocolate...
NationalityBritish
ProfessionDirector
Date of Birth1 August 1965
Violence is something that's very deliberately chosen - who sees it, the effect it has on the person watching, and the person performing the act of violence is more important than the violence itself. It's not about a gore-fest or how much blood you can show.
They thought the book was evil and a bad advertisement for the US Marine Corps.
There'll always be a section of a war movie that gets people pumped up in the same way there will always be men who will want to go to war, ... There is something that entices them there, that can be found in no other walk of life.
I'm interested in those personal stories, not taking a political stand.
I'm completely amazed and delighted. I kept my fingers crossed it would get good critical reaction, but the real surprise is that it's crossed over into the mainstream so comprehensively. I wasn't expecting that.
I froze for a bit, in truth-for about six months after the Oscars... There were lots of scripts landing on my desk.
In terms of being an outsider in America and having a certain type of objectivity to a degree, there were a few times I thought to myself: What on earth am I doing here? I'm a Brit making a movie so firmly set in the States!
I am not a master-class director. I am not a teacher. I am a coach. I don't have a methodology. Each actor is different. And on the film set, you have to be next to them all.
I don't want to tell people what to think about war, ... I just want them to think about it.
It's a risk casting anyone against type or what they're known to do. But there's one thing better than having a great actor, which is having a great actor who's never done what you're asking him to do. He's hungry to get out of the trailer every day and hungry to test himself.
It's very hard doing a period movie. You have to do everything, from the streetlamps to covering up the road markings. Every bystander has to be in period costume. You have to plan very carefully.
I still can't quite believe it. Although there was something about the fact that it was a first-time writer, a first-time producer, and a first-time director all at the same time.
Listen, you make a big movie, you're going into the Coliseum, and people are going to give you the thumbs up or the thumbs down. And that's part of the game. It's part of the fun as well.
If you lived through the shooting of Jaws, you can live through anything.