Chris O'Dowd Quotes

Yeah, I mean, I think I'm obsessed with tone in the movies. Tone has always been the main thing that I go after with a movie.

I don't want any description of me to be accurate; I want it to be flattering. I don't think people who have to sing for their supper ever like to be described truthfully - not in print anyway. We need to sell tickets, so we need good reviews.

I actually pay careful attention to that sort of thing - infusing humor into my films - because that's how important I think humor is.

I think cinema should provoke thoughts, sure, but using it as I soapbox I think is the wrong place.

I think the first duty of all art, including fiction of any kind, is to entertain. That is to say, to hold interest. No matter how worthy the message of something, if it's dull, you're just not communicating.

I need to create a whole cinematic experience. I think that's what it takes to get the audience to the theater and justify seeing [a movie] on a big screen. You have to give them a cinematic experience.

There's that weird and cool line that music can cross where it still gives you the goosebumps and you think it's cool but on the other hand it's sort of like also letting you off the hook a little bit with the ironic aspects of the thing. I think that's the inexplicable, the smell of a movie. That's the taste of the movie.

Many people say to me, "I saw [Miral] and it really stayed with me. I woke up the next day and really thought about it, and have been thinking about it for awhile." That was my goal.

Music is like color or acting or whatever. It's really something I think about from the beginning. Not that I always know exactly what I'm going to use, but I don't see it as something like, "Let's find some songs now!" after we have a finished film.

I think hip-hop can be prophetic and progressive, and at the same time, the dominant forms tend to be homophobic, misogynistic and something that we need to critically call into question.

I thought the first two seasons of America's Got Talent were good. I think this one is the best one by a mile because they - you see the difference this year, I think, with the crowd being effectively the fourth judge. But most importantly, I think that these shows have to have a relevance because if you're not finding stars at the back of these shows - whether it's Idol or Got Talent - they're a complete waste of time.

I don't think there is any difference between fantasy and reality in the way these should be approached in a film. Of course if you live that way you are clinically insane.

I had more trouble than I had a sense of utility or satisfaction. But it served to occupy me and to keep me occupied in a field that I love - which was cinema - while I was waiting to realize the film that I wanted to do, which was Once Upon a Time in America, which took ten years of thinking and working to realize.

The movie itself was very interesting, but I didn't think it was very good because I didn't really feel different when it was over.

Horror has been a genre since the beginning of cinema, all the way back to the days of silent films. I don't think it will ever go away because it's so universal. Humor doesn't always travel to other countries, but horror does.

It is that rare film [Moonlight] that comes along once in a while that catches the zeitgeist. This movie is that. I certainly have my fingers crossed that it is. Everyone needs to see this movie.

I think that the best television now is giving you a three-act experience.

I don't think my film style has changed. I'm doing the same kind of jokes I did when I was younger.

I think as an artist you evoke feeling and change and through that you send a message.

I still go to the conventions, and I like to hear the point of view of people today. I'm a little afraid they're being brainwashed by this new pop-culture. I think it's not really elevating our lives like it did in the good old days of Hollywood, where you had a happy ending. They used to criticize happy endings, but really, what's the point of going to a film if you have to come out hating your fellow man?

Without arts programmes there's only reality TV, and reality TV needs the arts to show it what reality is.

I hope I'm always lucky enough to be able to work in theater, TV, and big films and small films. I think there's advantages and disadvantages to all of them. The fact that this was a small film without much money and without much time made it rich in energy and momentum and drive when we were actually making it 'cause that's all you've got. You've just got the story and the people.

It would be difficult to determine whether the age is growing better or worse; for I think our plays are growing like sermons, and our sermons like plays.

I'm an actor, I do movies, and I need to find somebody who enjoys that kind of stuff. It's not like, "Oh, I have my work time, and we go on a date, and it better be darn fun and exciting!" I think it should all coalesce a bit more.

What a terrible world it would be if we only did films that were poster boards for political causes.