Top 20 Stephen Frears Quotes

Audiences aren’t fools – their judgement really is important. And the true heroes of films are the investors. They take the risk, after all.

I have people around me. I have a semi-permanent crew. If I make a film, they just turn up. They don’t even invite themselves. They don’t ask if they can come – they just turn up!

There’s one thing now that I experience every day when I’m making a film. I get up and think to myself, ‘Am I going to be able to do it today?’ I figure as long as I have that fear, I’ll be alright.

Film schools didn’t exist when I was growing up. I learned by working with clever people. Good writers and cinematographers.

I had a somewhat charmed life. I was brought up at the BBC. I did meet so many people cleverer than myself in those years. Often, I was slapped down and made to feel not good enough.

I never expected to become a director. It never occurred to me to come to America, to Hollywood. It’s all been a wonderful accident. I’m still amazed every time I finish a film.

Truth is quite constricting, in a way. You endlessly see at the start of a film ‘This is a true story‘.

It’s Marvel movies that get the big audiences.

I like a lot of takes. I just go on until the actors get it right.

I teach film directing, inasmuch as you can. It’s not really possible to teach film direction, but I sit there as a sort of testimony of experience and know-how, I suppose.

There isn’t a route to success. Make a film. If people like it, you’ll be okay. There is no route that I know of.

To be successful at anything, you need the right to fail, not just occasionally.

I’ve always found poverty a source of strength.

I’m a Republican, but I like the Queen. Like everyone else, I’m sentimental about the Queen.

I only watch films in the cinema. I’m old fashioned. I’m a lost cause.

I don’t generally believe in people being knighted.

It never crossed my mind to make a film about Muhammad Ali or the Queen or any of them! They just come out of the blue.

As a director, my job is to protect. I protect scripts, actors, cameramen, designers.

I’m Jewish; I’m not religious at all, and I wouldn’t pretend to know anything about Catholic politics.

The only way you can learn about making films is by making them, by putting your stamp on the thing.