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" I like taking genres and subverting them. I did that with 'In the Valley of Elah.' I said, 'Okay, this is just a murder mystery. Relax.' And then, two thirds of the way through, I broke every convention of a murder mystery. "

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" My kids paid the price for my career. We can say it's for our family, but it almost never is. It's about us. It's just some of us can pretend better than others. "

Paul Haggis

Family

Price

Say

" We give you characters we'd feel very comfortable judging, and then go: 'Oh yeah? Watch this'. "

" Even in a comedy, you have to make people feel. You have to put your hand inside their soul and twist out their heart. "

" I just figure if you have a modicum of celebrity, you need to use it, and you need to use it for more things than just promoting yourself or your film or your image or your product. "

" I don't think it's the job of filmmakers to give anybody answers. I do think, though, that a good film makes you ask questions of yourself as you leave the theatre. "

" I'm a deeply broken person, and broken institutions fascinate me. "

Paul Haggis

Institutions

Deeply

" 'Crash' was incredibly personal to me. So was 'In the Valley of Elah.' There were things in 'The Next Three Days' that were questions I was asking myself but couldn't answer, like how far would you go for love? Can you believe in somebody who can't even believe in themselves? But this is highly personal. "

Paul Haggis

Questions

Myself

" The wonderful thing about Clint is you can never second guess how he is going to react to anything. "

Paul Haggis

React

Wonderful

" I am really drawn to damaged characters, and I have a lot of sympathy for them. Making those complicated characters empathetic is something to strive for. It's too easy to create a good guy or a good girl. "

" I don't think I'm against all wars, but you'd have to have a damn good reason to send your son or daughter to fight, or to go yourself. So often, we are lied to and manipulated by our governments for their own very cynical reasons. "

" Unless I'm really uneasy with what I'm writing, I lose interest very quickly. "

" I made a very good living as a bad writer. I wrote a lot of comedies, 'Diff'rent Strokes,' 'Facts of Life,' while all my friends were doing the good shows, like 'Cheers,' but I loved it because I got to be a working writer in Hollywood. "

" I wrote an episode for 'thirtysomething,' and a producer said, 'That's really good, but what is it about? What does it say about you? What questions are you asking yourself?' I had never thought about that. This comment changed who I was, because it made me look at my own soul, the dark corners in my soul, and accept that dark side. "

" Film is an emotional medium; it's not a logical medium. It's not an intellectual medium, so every decision you make as a filmmaker and an actor has to be emotional in some way, even in the rejection of logic. "

" There's nothing more painful than writing. "

Paul Haggis

Than

Painful

" The worst thing you can do to a filmmaker is to walk out of his film and go, 'That was a nice movie.' But if you can cause people to walk out and then argue about the film on the sidewalk... I think we're all seeking dissension, and we love to affect an audience. "

" I loved American filmmakers when I was growing up. I didn't get to film school or anything. I was a very bad student. I just devoured film, but there was a point in my teens when I started to run a little film society. "

" I'm such an antsy type of person. I can't write in a room without other people around. I write in coffee shops. "

" You can't plan for people to like your movies. I knew that people were not going to run in droves to the theater for the 'In the Valley of Elah.' I knew they might not want to see it, but I still had to the movie; I felt very strongly about it. Wanting to keep telling a good story is what you want to do, a compelling story. "

" I don't pay much attention to the press. My films always get good reviews and bad reviews. I just try to make the best film I can. "

" When I discovered European filmmakers, it affected me so deeply. It redefined what cinema could be. I mean, 'Blow-Up' ends with a dead body and mimes playing tennis. What? "

Paul Haggis

Mean

Body

" You have to have empathy, knowledge and compassion for your characters if you're a writer. "

" I was trying to talk about where we are right now as a society, and talk about the fear we all live in, and certainly since 9-11, how it's affected us and the world. "

" We all have these tendencies in us that could go this way or that. I think that's the real key in writing. To look at a character without judgment. "

Paul Haggis

Writing

Character

" I have never pretended to be the best Scientologist, but I openly and vigorously defended the church whenever it was criticized, as I railed against the kind of intolerance that I believed was directed against it. I had my disagreements, but I dealt with them internally. "

" For me, the most interesting people are ones who often work against their best interests. Bad choices. They go in directions where you go, 'No no no nooo!' You push away someone who is trying to love you, you hurt someone who's trying to get your trust, or you love someone you shouldn't. "

" We're trying to reinvent Bond. He's 28 - no Q, no gadgets. "

" As a general rule, I don't plan to travel with my Oscars, but we may have to make an exception. "

" I'm a filmmaker, and I was most influenced by Hitchcock's films. How he could plant such deep enriched characters and then make us care both about the antagonist and protagonist was masterful. "

Paul Haggis

Care

" I like it when an actor is secure enough to ask questions, and the director is secure enough not to be threatened by that. "