I don't think the biggest crime is to not sympathize with people. I think the biggest crime is to not be interested.
We're very skeptical of people who are too perfect.
We like flawed people.
The more shaded, flawed characters that are struggling, I think there's something very relatable about that.
I love when people say 'Imitation Game' is such a crowd pleaser.
It's a blessing to find a project you feel you have to make or you'll die.
I wanted to make a movie that celebrates the outsider, the one who is different, the one who is not normal - and show how important that is.
It's not every actor that can play a genius.
If I did the structure and had this thing about a straight character, I would never have a sex scene to prove that he's heterosexual. If I have a gay character in a movie, I need to have a sex scene in it - just to prove that he's gay?
I was shocked that I knew so little about Alan Turing. Then I started to read about him, and I got a little obsessed.
Trying to explain Turing's work in encryption and decryption? It's complicated.
To me, Turing is as much of a philosopher as he is a mathematician because his ideas deal with what it means to think.
Just because someone or something thinks differently than you do, it doesn't mean that it's not thinking.
World War II was the last 'pure' war. It was purely heroic. There was someone who tried to conquer the world, who tried to exterminate people.
We have to remind ourselves that what we take for granted now is hard-won.
I thought I knew who Alan Turing was. I've always loved history, and I was actually shocked by how little I actually knew. I was amazed this wasn't common knowledge. Why wasn't he on the front covers of my history books? He's one of the great thinkers of the last century, and he was sort of pushed into the shadows.
I'm a Coen Brothers fan - especially their early work.
When you watch a Hitchcock movie, you feel like learning back because there's a master in control.
I love Fincher, as he has a great atmosphere and intensity. Also, I grew up watching Hitchcock movies, and there was something elegant in the way he plays with you and plays with the character and tricks you.
I don't think you pick your projects; you just fall in love with it, and it just becomes something you have to do.
