I got a few things, because I think the props are so beautiful as much as anything else. The detail of the work is something that one has no idea of.
David HeymanIn some ways, many of the skills you have as a producer on independent films also apply to making big tentpole films: You surround yourself with a brilliant director, great script and talented people in every department who are smarter than you.
David HeymanI like stories that begin with characters. I like to be engaged and moved by the characters in the story. I want to be moved. I want to leave the cinema and think about what I've seen. My sensibility is quite eclectic and it doesn't matter if they are small or large films, I just want to make good films.
David HeymanAll we try and do is make the best films we can. If you do that then hopefully the audiences will come, and they have. Everything else is gravy.
David HeymanBut there's something about the simplicity of Auschwitz... there's just nothing. There's just photographs, there's a room full of limbs, a room full of hair, and then you go into the place where the gas chambers were. You walk down these halls and the efficiency of it is so inhuman. The place is so powerful, just for its utter bald, bare simplicity.
David HeymanThe most important thing is that you have to have the visual effects working for you, instead of you working for the visual effects.
David HeymanBecause actually it's really hard to get things made. It takes years. To fight the fights you inevitably have to fight, even when you've produced Harry Potter, you'd better have the commitment and the passion to knock down walls, not take no for an answer.
David HeymanI'm interested in making films of all sizes. During this time I've made a film called 'The Boy in the Striped Pajamas', which is a modest-sized film. I was involved in 'I Am Legend' and 'Yes, Man', but 'Potter' is unique. There'll never be anything like 'Potter' again.
David HeymanI look forward to having the time and the opportunity to take on new challenges, but I'm also aware that I've loved every minute of the 'Potter 'experience: to make films for an enthusiastic audience and work with great material.
David HeymanThe truth is, it's very hard looking back... we look at holocaust now with such knowledge and such a sense of the horror of what it was, that it's hard to believe even now that in 1930s and 1940s, before something like this had happened, that it could be impossible to imagine the extent of this horror.
David HeymanMaking the films is never easy, but actually that aspect of trying to make a better film or to keep the standard high is something that comes organically.
David HeymanI love books. I read voraciously, and I happened to have been fortunate to have been in the right place at the right time.
David HeymanI think it's great to see how they've grown up, not just as actors but as people. They're still very much the same kids that I met many years ago. They've grown up and they are funny and wicked and naughty and bright, and I think as actors their work is just getting better and better. They've blossomed.
David Heyman