Stephen Daldry
Stephen Daldry
Stephen David Daldry, CBE 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, The Hours, The Readerand Extremely Loud and Incredibly Close...
ProfessionDirector
Date of Birth2 May 1960
criticism pieces way
It's disingenuous to say that criticism doesn't get to you or you don't hear it or that you ignore it. When everybody says, 'That's crap. I hated that,' you hear it. But it's much, much worse when they're right: when you feel that it is an absolute piece of tosh. I made the film I wanted to make, so you just have to find a way of getting over it.
differences people matter
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 get another go.
successful class people
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 working-class life, given that those are the people who go to movies.
eight ideas actors
Most theater methodology is predicated on the idea of repeated actions. That's what you work toward. Having the actor repeat the same moment eight times a week. In a film, it's getting that one moment right.
couple who-i-am theatre
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.
bored know-how knows
As soon as I know how to do something, I usually get bored with it.
bored needs three
I always say, 'I really need to take a break.' It's three days in and I'm getting pretty bored.
morning telephones costumes
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.
ideas stories film
I categorically resist this idea that films are supposed to be autobiographical and the only stories you tell are about your own life.
choices might return
I have never been motivated by money in my life. You can't make choices based on what the financial return might be.
eight hbo tvs
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.
important theatre world
Every now and then I have to teach directing. The thing about the theatre is that the most important thing you can do as a director is to make sure that everybody is in the same world - you have to create the world and make sure everyone buys into it.
country war pieces
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.
country drama father
The culturally specific, in particular, the American porch play that American writers have cherished and loved for many years in terms of their new writing, has seemed to have very little relevance to a much more fast-flowing, abstract, experimental drama that has been emerging in [the UK]. The porch play, not to mention that thing of, Oops, I wasn't loved enough by my father, somehow didn't have the relevance in this country.