“I don't really like the Oscars; it's a commercial promotional event. I...” — Richard Attenborough Quote

I don't really like the Oscars; it's a commercial promotional event. It helps immeasurably to sell films, but it's hardly the Nobel prize.

What actually happened with 'Miracle' was that someone saw me in 'Jurassic Park' and said, 'We want someone with a white beard - how about him?' I've got a round face, white hair, a white beard. I can wear half-moon glasses and waddle a little, cope with a cane, raise my hat.

I think there were times when, if circumstances had developed, I might have been tempted into politics. I am a fan of Tony Blair. I think Gordon Brown is a fine man, but I think he's headed for one hell of a bloody struggle.

I'm not a great director or an auteur; I'm an ensemble director. I do think I can get wonderful performances out of actors.

My writing became more and more minimalist. In the end, I couldn't write at all. For seven or eight years, I hardly wrote. But then I had a revelation. What if I did the opposite? What if, when a sentence or a scene was bad, I expanded it, and poured in more and more? After I started to do that, I became free in my writing.

If one sticks too rigidly to one's principles, one would hardly see anybody.

When I told my parents that I wanted to be an actor, they were like, 'How can you be an actor? You have to go out and interact with people! You hardly talk to our relatives!'

The picture surface recedes just as much in the 20th century as it did in the 15th. The techniques of making pictures have hardly changed.