Nicolas Winding Refn Quotes

In a way, art is a great way to release your love, fantasy, and desires. It's like a fetish. It's a comfortable way of excising a lot of your conscience.

I also believe on a practical level, if you're taking time away from people, besides entertaining them, I think it's important that there's something to react to.

Creativity is very self-indulgent.

I love watching the superhero movies and I would love to make one.

Understanding one's own power is more interesting than someone being given something powerful.

I think the idea of individualism has become more dominating in our society. You can even see it by our political system: how people vote, the job situation, the sociological evolution that's happening, what's happening in the Middle East and so forth.

The idea of narcissism, essentially, is and will be accepted as a virtue.

I believe shooting chronologically gives you a very fresh perspective and you're always aware of where you are in the development of the characters.

I don't have to go very far to see the power of beauty. Being desired, feeling desired is a very seductive aspect of our being.

I've stopped showing actors what to actually do. I rather just talk to them about it. Then I usually play music. That's a great way to convey inner emotion, bring the power of style and acting together. That's really what it is, very good acting without talking.

I've been trying to get away from physical violence; it's too easy; it doesn't satisfy me artistically to work with it. Dramatic violence is much more interesting, but it's much more difficult.

The more we become civilized, the more we simultaneously understand our need to be virtuous, and our need to understand our experiences on a subconscious level.

Look at the birth of anything; it's always more violent than anything you could ever imagine.

We live in a society right now which is the last phase of the ecosystem in terms of the old entertainment value, or the old entertainment construction, which is we've gone down to this instant gratification, instant numbers, instant understanding, instant. But it's like the exact - it has perfected itself to the instant click, when, in a way, creativity originates as a much more complex beast. So we now have to reinvent a new canvas where we can indulge in it. And that's where the digital revolution creates a whole new ecosystem of entertainment.

We live in a world where art is always looked upon as the perfect medium. We live in a society where we can alter our body parts, we can act in the most perfect or right way. A lot of that is dangerous because, especially in the world of art, the chief enemy of creativity is being safe. If you're safe, you can't fall and hurt yourself. The older you are, the further down the crash is going to be. But if it works out, the higher the high.

You ask actors what they would like to do, and you constantly keep them engaged. You want their engagement, input, and sensibilities. It's that intimate collaboration that is actually directing. I don't like the mechanicalness or coldness; I like the intimacy. It's like we are creating a child together.

I am not a fan of improvisation, because it bores me. Working off a tight scenario gives you the confidence and ability to - why don't we change this a little bit and bring it back to the script. You always discover things while shooting.

People very quickly define success due to the amount of money something makes. In the end, I think everyone is searching for that experience. That's why we continue to go to the movies and watch television.

We live in a beauty-obsessed culture, which on one hand is absolutely fabulous, but on the flip side, is also dangerously extreme.

I love rock ballads, and I'm kind of in emotional turmoil, being ill and high, so I start to sing to the song, I turn it up and start to sing.

I just close my eyes and I fantasize what I would like to see.

I think that's the struggle of our normality is that we have oppressed desires because of what is accepted and not accepted in society.

In a way "Drive" is probably the greatest superhero movie ever made.

I always think once you have the lead protagonist, you cast around that character.

Nowadays, teenagers are so fast and quick to see through any form of manipulation. Sitting down and just thinking of something is like watching really bad pornography.

[Liv Corfixen] very much part of my life in that she's everything in my life and we found a way to use each other much more on a creative level as well. She was kind of the idea for this movie so I wanted to acknowledge that. She gave me the original idea to make the film.

I can't make a film that I don't feel comfortable with.

We have basic urges all the time. They just manifest themselves in different scenarios, and we have to turn those weaknesses into our strengths. Art is very much about making your weaknesses your strength.

That's half of what we do our daily lives - we react to our surroundings. Of course, we have to make it entertaining, and we are entertainers.

In "Drive," there's a heightened male edge. In "Only God Forgives," it was almost crawling back into the womb of the mother. And now with "The Neon Demon," being reborn as a 16-year-old girl.

The minute you celebrate narcissism, which on one hand is very complex, it's very ridiculous. You have to love oneself with humor.

I think when you make a movie, one of your main focuses as a director is to inspire everyone else to give their best. Like manipulation.

The kind of group mentality that we had lived under since the Second World War is starting to erupt, and the craving for individualism is now much stronger. It's not as taboo anymore, as it was when I was younger.

When you make something that everyone likes, it's very easy to say, "Well, I'll just repeat that." Because that was easy. I have a formula. But creatively, it's not very interesting.

Reaction is what changes your understanding of the world.

Ironically, even the fashion in New York or Paris or Milan or whatever, or music in Berlin, or art in, I don't know, Madrid - all these scenes come and go. Everything leads back to Hollywood.

I woke up one day and I realized I wasn't born beautiful, but my wife was, so I decided to make a horror film about it: what it would be like to be born beautiful.

The thing with Ryan, you can look at him for hours. Very few actors have that. It's a gift.

The future is not about what you do, it's about what you stand for.

I like the early comic book characters more than the new ones.

The digital revolution is forever. They put importance on that option as well. With Amazon, you're getting the best of both worlds, with a whole new playing field.

Filmmaking is like any kind of art form. You have to try to figure it out, and you're going to do that by trying. It's like teaching a child to walk. It may start by walking, but eventually it will fall. And I have kids, but I know that that will enable them to stand up again and understand why they fell, and how they can avoid that. They will walk better and faster, and stronger. Filmmaking is the same.

In the end, self-indulgence is very much about your ego and your vanity and your own id. The more you can indulge in it, the more pleasurable it becomes. And then when it feeds out, it's able to penetrate the mind and create a reaction.