Casting a film, you can have the greatest actors in a film and it doesn't work. It's a combination of all of the elements.
Man is such an amazing animal, and the possibilities are infinite for each person.
It takes a long time to make me beautiful, but it goes fast to make me ugly.
There is no overacting, only untrue acting.
I treat everyone as equals. I can't work if I'm not having fun, and I can't have fun if not everyone is happy.
I never help my kids and I never encourage them and I never give them any advice.
People don't want to read subtitles.
One of the beauties of 'The Girl with the Dragon Tattoo' is the very delicate and strange relationship between the two main characters.
I love having 30 shots of every scene.
There was a Russian director named Elem Klimov, who did his films during the communist days. They were constantly struggling with the authorities and to be allowed to express themselves. But he did one of the best war movies I've ever seen - it's called 'Come and See.'
Norway is a small country, about half the size of Sweden, but it has a very good film climate because they have municipal cinemas, so even in the smallest towns you have a cinema that shows art house films from all over the world.
Norwegian kids, they grow up well educated in film. So they have a lot of good directors there.
The way I look at humanity, I don't think there's good guys or bad guys. We're all potentially bad and potentially good.
Shooting should not be about delivering something I've prepared; it should be a live process of finding things out. When things happen that you haven't planned, that's when the film comes alive.
I've never thought of myself as a professional. I very rarely do something I don't enjoy.
With Fincher, you can take chances and try things. And what happens is that any pretension and preparation you've done, all the square, intellectual work, you can't keep that up for 40 takes. It breaks down, and new things start popping up. This, for me, is the most exciting thing about film-making.
I think Dan Brown is a terribly bad writer, but he has cliff-hangers after every chapter which makes you continue reading.
I only did 'Thor' because it was Kenneth Branagh directing, but I enjoyed it much more than I thought I would.
The first time I did a big American film, I was surprised by all the different financiers who came to the set and told the director what to do.
In Europe, the director is the king: it's his vision. It's an auteur tradition.
