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" I'm a deeply broken person, and broken institutions fascinate me. "
Paul Haggis
Me
Institutions
Deeply
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" 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
" 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
" 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. "
Paul Haggis
Growing Up
School
Society
" I thought 'The King's Speech' was great. "
Paul Haggis
King
Great
Speech
" 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
" As artists, we have to be brave. If we aren't brave, we aren't artists. "
Paul Haggis
Brave
Be Brave
Artists
" 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. "
Paul Haggis
Talk
World
Trying
" I just love actors, and I've always loved actors. I empathize with their job. Everyone thinks it's easy, and it ain't. To be that vulnerable and brave on camera is tough. The more they reveal themselves, the more we love them, but there's a lot of truth in what they're showing. "
Paul Haggis
Brave
Camera
Job
" The great majority of Scientologists I know are good people who are genuinely interested in improving conditions on this planet and helping others. "
Paul Haggis
Good
Great
Know
" 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
" 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
" '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
" 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
" 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
" 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. "
Paul Haggis
Choices
Work
Trust
" 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
" 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. "
Paul Haggis
Easy
Sympathy
Create
" 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
" 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
" 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 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
" 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. "
Paul Haggis
Film
Celebrity
Yourself
" 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. "
Paul Haggis
Church
Best
Kind
" 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
" 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
Us
He
" 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'. "
Paul Haggis
Feel
You
Watch
" Even in a comedy, you have to make people feel. You have to put your hand inside their soul and twist out their heart. "
Paul Haggis
Feel
You
Soul
" We're trying to reinvent Bond. He's 28 - no Q, no gadgets. "
Paul Haggis
Gadgets
Bond
Trying
" Every 10 years, I know less about love and relationships. The smarter I get, the less I know. "
Paul Haggis
Years
Know
Less