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" I miss my mother very, very much. "
Paul Haggis
Mother
Miss
Very
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" You don't make a film because the audience is ready for it. You make a film because you have questions that are in your gut. "
Paul Haggis
Audience
Film
Questions
" All my work is partly biographical. I mean, 'Crash' was absolutely that, absolutely. But you just wouldn't recognize me in most of those characters. But I was in every single one of those characters in 'Crash,' because those were all fears that I had felt. Things that I had thought in my deepest, darkest heart. "
Paul Haggis
Heart
Me
Thought
" 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. "
Paul Haggis
Love
You
Walk
" My one guiding rule for success in the film world would be, be careful of your friends. "
Paul Haggis
Success
Friends
World
" We give you characters we'd feel very comfortable judging, and then go: 'Oh yeah? Watch this'. "
Paul Haggis
Feel
You
Watch
" '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
Me
" 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
Me
Body
" 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. "
Paul Haggis
Theatre
Job
Good
" I like to write about things about which I have no answers, questions that trouble me. These things trouble me. "
Paul Haggis
Trouble
Answers
Like
" Even a modicum of celebrity is hard to deal with. You see it with actors and directors all the time. "
Paul Haggis
Deal
See
Hard
" I don't know if 'Crash' is a good movie or not because I didn't set out to make a movie. Really, what I wanted to do is more of a social experiment. "
Paul Haggis
Good
Know
More
" I don't know how much credit I can take for 'Walker, Texas Ranger,' because I only worked on it for three weeks. I re-wrote the pilot, and then my name was on it forever. "
Paul Haggis
Know
Credit
I Can
" I thought 'The King's Speech' was great. "
Paul Haggis
King
Great
Speech
" 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. "
Paul Haggis
Friends
Good
Life
" 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. "
Paul Haggis
Best
Bad
Attention
" 'Crash' came from personal experience. I saw things inside me from living in L.A. that made me uncomfortable. I saw horrible things in people and saw terrible things in myself. I saw a black director completely humiliated, but the three people around me just thought it was funny. 'No,' I said, 'that is selling your soul.' "
Paul Haggis
Myself
Experience
Funny
" As artists, we have to be brave. If we aren't brave, we aren't artists. "
Paul Haggis
Brave
Be Brave
Artists
" Irish and Italian are my two favourite people. "
Paul Haggis
Favourite
Irish
Italian
" I'm such an antsy type of person. I can't write in a room without other people around. I write in coffee shops. "
Paul Haggis
Coffee
Write
Without
" 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. "
Paul Haggis
Two
Way
Said
" 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
" I moved to Hollywood when I was 22. I was married. I had a kid right away. And I had worked as a furniture mover amongst various other jobs, and I'd work eight, ten hours a day to support my family - and I'd come home and write for two hours a night or two and a half, or three hours a night. "
Paul Haggis
Support
Work
Night
" 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
Go
" A lot of films made me love the movies, everything from Hitchcock to Godard. But the ones that really grabbed me were Costa-Gavras's films like 'Z' and 'State of Siege.' "
Paul Haggis
Made
Love
Movies
" 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. "
Paul Haggis
People
You
Story
" In 'The Next Three Days,' even though it was a prison breakout movie, I was asking myself, 'What would I do? How far would I go for the woman I loved? How far would I go, and what would I do when the person then told me that they were guilty? Could I still believe in them?' So it was very personal. "
Paul Haggis
Woman
Prison
Myself
" 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. "
Paul Haggis
Good
Dark
Thought
" I just asked myself, what piece of that man's soul did he just chew off and swallow to get next week's assignment? You know, just to live, just to work as an artist, or to feed the family? "
Paul Haggis
Man
Live
Soul
" You have to have empathy, knowledge and compassion for your characters if you're a writer. "
Paul Haggis
You
Knowledge
Compassion
" I like it when an actor is secure enough to ask questions, and the director is secure enough not to be threatened by that. "
Paul Haggis
Questions
Enough
Director