Nicolas Winding Refn Quotes

There is a tendency to underestimate the power of what we can do without words. Sometimes you can make a scene even more powerful and precise without dialogue.

Your internal dialogue has got to be different from what you say. And, you know, in film, hopefully that registers and speaks volumes. It's always the unspoken word and what's happening behind someone's eyes that makes it so rich.

There are some long silences in Scandinavian and some Japanese films, when the audience knows action is taking place, but the audience hears no action.

As much as movies are about the words that you're saying, they're also about what's not said, the silent moments.

I enjoy playing characters where the silence is loud.

The script will point you in certain directions and I go the opposite if I can. I try do do one thing and tell a different story with my eyes. I believe what's more interesting is always what's not being said.

It made me alive to the fact that the most important thing sometimes is what isn't said - to prepare for moments of revelation that can be read entirely on actors' faces without dialogue.

I'm an instinctive actor. I just see the part and play it. I'm more interested in what isn't said - the silences.

In a Western, you talk more with your eyes and your actions than you do with big speeches. I love that.

The greatest acting really is spoken without words, or at least I like to think that.

Sometimes it feels as if the artist hasn't done the real work of engaging with the material. Film noir can't just play off looks and attitudes. A thriller needs a dose of genuine suspense. It does not have to be literal, but it does have to feel genuine. Otherwise the artist is just leeching off the form.

Filmmaking is not about what we see - it's a very misconceived notion; it's about what we don't see.

I love dialogue, but I'm also terrified of it. In all my movies, I've done my best to cut out as much dialogue as possible. I love the spaces in those silences. Even in 'Pete's Dragon,' I was so happy that the first twenty minutes have about five or six lines of dialogue.

I always find with dramas that the more that's left to the imagination of the audience, the better.

I feel, in drama, you don't need to be fed everything. Even though sometimes when you watch, you want to know what happened and you want to see it, I feel like sometimes it's so much stronger to see the effects that those actions have had.

I supply a presence. There are never any long dialogue scenes to establish a character.

Tone matters more than words.

The silent movie is an emotional cinema: it's sensory; the fact that you don't go through a text brings you back to a basic way of telling a story predicated on the feelings you have created.

With silent films, you're better off avoiding irony, because the spectator is your accomplice. It's this pact that leads to emotion being created.

It's hard to tell writers, especially in movies, that words are secondary. Behavior is important.

Some actors are better with words than me. I prefer to play it rather than say it - and keep people thinking.

For me, everything about the telling is guided by tone. It's a bit mysterious; it's either there, or it isn't.

As a cinematographer or director, I'm always looking for projects that are able to say a lot with the actor's expressions.

In dialogue scenes, my favorite moments are when people aren't talking because you can cut to the heart of the matter much more quickly, often with a look. People hide things in words. When you don't have words to hide things in, it becomes much more direct and much more immediate of a connection.

Theatre is more metaphorical where you have to be louder and larger than life, whereas film is more subtle and more real.