Ridley Scott

When I started the original 'Alien,' Ripley wasn't a woman, it was a guy.

I am a science fiction enthusiast, really, deep down.

Perhaps because of my background as a graphic designer, I'm drawn to rich and beautiful colors.

The hardest single thing you do is get the bloody screenplay right.

History is only conjecture, and the best historians try to do it as accurately as they can. They try to accurately reassemble the facts and then put them down on paper.

I don't make films for other people; I make films for me.

Unfortunately, we don't seem to learn from history, do we? And you'd think we would.

'The Duellists' won Cannes, but Paramount didn't know how to release a film about two guys in bizarre breeches, waving swords around. I actually think it's a pretty good Western.

And I maintain good relationships with all the studios so I've never been bullied into any cut, frankly.

I wanted 'Alien' to be all about claustrophobia.

Sacred texts give no specific depiction of God, so for centuries, artists and filmmakers have had to choose their own visual depiction.

'The Man In High Castle' is one of Dick's most imaginative and captivating works, and certainly one of my favorites.

Churchill strikes a note in my life because my father worked on Mulberry Harbour, which was the code name for the temporary concrete harbours which were towed across the Channel to make the D-day landings in France possible.

I'm agnostic because I went through the usual process of parents insisting you go to church, and yet they didn't. So there's me, sitting in the chairs, thinking, 'Jeez, why am I here? I'd rather be playing tennis, seriously.'

My career seems to be a career of non-specific subjects which are all over the place.

Egypt was - as it is now - a confluence of cultures, as a result of being a crossroads geographically between Africa, the Middle East and Europe.

I think over time I've learned to stop being a screamer and get interactive; otherwise, you get killed in Hollywood. I stopped being a screamer shortly after 'Blade Runner,' kicking doors and things like that, because I wasn't actually getting anywhere.

You just don't know when you get all the paint across the canvas how it will turn out. When you step back after you've finished, you say, 'This one is not so good. This one is good.'

I watched Someone to Watch Over Me the other night. I thought it was a really good movie. It's a great movie.

I am in a constant stage of development.

I've gradually realised that what I do best is universes. And I shouldn't be afraid of that.

Do what you haven't done is the key, I think.

When you're at a certain point in your time - age, that is, when you're older - you start to realize that, actually, what you leave behind you does count, and so you start to become fundamentally aware of your own destiny, which sounds very grand. It's not grand at all, actually.

Technology continues to bring us wondrous advances in filmmaking to improve how we view movies.

When you're watching a documentary, the danger is to romanticize.

I do a pretty good job at casting actually.

I've always avoided sequels, unless I felt there was something fresh.

The U.K. has to keep investing in new technology, skills, and infrastructure to keep pace with international competition.

I'm an Englishman who did a film on Mogadishu, 'Black Hawk Down.'

It doesn't matter how much faith you have or don't have. I just don't buy the idea that we're alone. There's got to be some form of life out there.

The key thing is you can be the only person, your own critic.

I had been very impressed with the voiceover of 'Apocalypse Now,' with Martin Sheen's voice. That was a great voiceover; it really internalized the Martin Sheen character, who was essentially fairly low key and didn't say a lot during the whole movie. But he thought a lot, so I always thought that was really great.

A hit for me is if I enjoy the movie, if I personally enjoy the movie.

And anyway, it's only movies. to stop me I think they'll ahve to shoot me in the head.

Sci-fi films are as dead as westerns.

The great attraction to 'American Gangster' is these two great characters who are absolute paradoxes within their own sphere.

If you believe, you believe; if you're faithful, you're faithful. I don't care what your religion is. The same if you're agnostic. That should be accepted, too.

Scaring someone's the hardest thing to do, and that's why most of these scary movies are not scary. They're sick, but not scary. There's a lot of sickness out there, of people who then sit there and watch it, which I think is absolutely dismaying.

Fire is our first form of technology.

If you ever have a kid who doesn't know what to do, stick him in art school. It's amazing what evolves.

'Alien' is a C film elevated to an A film, honestly, by it being well done and a great monster. If it hadn't had that great monster, even with a wonderful cast, it wouldn't have been as good, I don't think.

From time to time, there are people in the film industry who appear on the horizon with a unique vision. South African director Neill Blomkamp is one of those rare people.

MPC, Moving Picture Company, they're really excellent, they did the majority of the effects.

I made the mistake of saying I was an atheist at one point, when I was doing 'Kingdom of Heaven.'

People have no idea how physically tough doing a film is.

Audiences are smarter than ever; they know if filmmakers cheat an environment.

One of the problems with science fiction, which is probably one of the reasons why I haven't done one for many, many years, is the fact that everything is used up. Every type of spacesuit is used up, every type of spacecraft is vaguely familiar, the corridors are similar, and the planets are similar.

I try to make films, not movies. I've never liked the expression 'movie', but it sounds elitist to say that.

I tend to watch a lot of lower-budget movies to find out what's doing down there and find out who's coming up.

Any period is fascinating the more ancient the better.

A word on 'Kingdom of Heaven:' if you get the four-disc set, which is 3 hr. 8 min., you'll see why it's such a good movie. It was a real passion project, and it's the film I'm most proud of. I think it was treated incredibly unfairly.

It's hard writing screenplays.

I like Wadi Rum - it's the best view I've ever seen of what could be Mars.

Yes, obviously, there's this degree of wanting people to accept other people faiths and philosophies.

I think one of the successes of Gladiator is how we manage to turn on a dime the character from one thing to another where you believe he is one thing and he is something very different.

Try writing a book, dude. That's difficult.

Sometimes I find I'm wearing a divided, split brain in terms of drama and humor.

As a filmmaker, deep blacks are essential, and in my experience, no technology captures those attributes as well as Plasma.

The time it would take me to write a screenplay it would take me the time to make two films. I would rather make the movies, and I'm a better moviemaker than I would be writer.

I get so used to working with writers that my prime occupation is development.

Digital is a different world because you are sitting at home and a hi tech piece of equipment today is within reach of most people, so they are watching a pretty hi tech version of whatever you've done.

'Alien' is a landmark. One of the really good science-fiction films.

I'm a yarn teller. My job is to engage you as much as I can and as often as I can.

Some people like to do everything always the same thing. That's another way: To do the same thing.

Life isn't black and white. It's a million gray areas, don't you find?

I started late. I didn't make my first movie until I was 40.

Same thing with film, by the time you've finished shooting and you've really been into everything, you've touched up everything in the editing room. You've gone in there and taken little bits from everything.

I used to agonise over what to do next, but now I'm making a movie a year. It's insane, but it's only a movie after all. You just hang in there, and occasionally you might make something which you can call art... briefly.

I'm fundamentally a positive person. Otherwise, I wouldn't be doing some of the insane movies that I do.

Doing science fiction at a high level is tricky. It's really tricky.

Most people need the money all the time.

I unfortunately do suffer for my art.

If you go back and look, a completely underrated film is 'Quest for Fire.' That was one of the most genius, simplistic but incredibly sophisticated notion of what it was. The evolution of that was just fantastic.

How can you look at the galaxy and not feel insignificant

There has to be absolute trust between the tiger and its master, but its master must be the master - there must be no mistake about that.

Everyone is tearing each other apart in the name of their personal god. And the irony is, by definition, they're probably worshiping the same god.

On rare occasions, Dad used to reminisce about when he met Eisenhower and how Churchill would pop in, in the late hours of the evening or night, carrying a cigar, when he'd obviously had a good dinner.

How can you look at the galaxy and not feel insignificant?

I think there are a lot of men who feel they're being emasculated by having the woman be in charge; I've never had that problem.

I'm a very practical person.

There are some moments that are pretty distressing in 'Prometheus.' In fact, the last hour is pretty distressing.

I was one of those kids who tended to stay in on Saturday nights. My mother used to come and say, 'Why don't you go to the dance with the boys?' And I'm going, 'No, I'm perfectly happy.' I think my parents thought I was definitely weird.

The people who really resurrected 'Blade Runner' was 'MTV.'

I'll reshoot a corridor 13 different ways, and you'll never recognise them.

Blade Runner appears regularly, two or three times a year in various shapes and forms of science fiction. It set the pace for what is essentially urban science fiction, urban future and it's why I've never re-visited that area because I feel I've done it.

I've got many letters from Muslim organizations thanking me for making 'Kingdom of Heaven.'

Fundamentally, I always find that most of the films that I've put out are essentially the director's cut. Part of the process with a director's cut is the leaving behind of certain aspects of the movie that we don't feel necessary because they aren't part of the dynamic of the story.

In my view, the only way to see a film remains the way the filmmaker intended: inside a large movie theater with great sound and pristine picture.

You always worry before your movie opens that no one is going to come out.

I was always aware that this whole Earth is on overload.

Politics is very interesting and always leads to conflict.

People say I pay too much attention to the look of a movie but for God's sake, I'm not producing a Radio 4 Play for Today, I'm making a movie that people are going to look at.

Technology will need to make many more huge leaps before one can ever view films with the level of picture and sound quality many film lovers demand without having to slide a disc into a player, especially with the technical requirements of today's 3D movies.

I knew exactly what to do on Alien, it was funny.

The Gulf of Mexico, they believe, is a huge asteroid. That was an impact zone, you know that? Yeah, for that big a thing to actually hit our globe, it would have had to adjusted the spin, the axis.

Your landscape in a western is one of the most important characters the film has. The best westerns are about man against his own landscape.

In science fiction, we're always searching for new frontiers. We're drawn to the unknown.

The idea of flying in general does not appeal to me. I can barely understand why people want to fly at all, other than that it's occasionally necessary.

I grew up in the North of England at a time when Stirling Moss was a hero. Everyone wanted to be a racing driver.

Once, I got slaughtered after 'Blade Runner' by Pauline Kael: three pages of slaughter. I was so offended, I would never read any more press.