Ridley Scott

Dad entered the Second World War like any other man, trying to do the right thing.

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.

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

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

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

Fire is our first form of technology.

Taking a comic strip character is very hard to write. Because comics are meant to work in one page, to work in frames with minimalistic dialogue. And a lot of it is left to the imagination of the reader. To do that in film, you've got to be a little more explanatory. And that requires a good screenplay and good dialogue.

When you're in the editing room, the dangerous thing is that it becomes like telling a joke again and again and again. Eventually, the joke starts to not be funny. So you have to be careful that you're not throwing the baby out with the bath water.

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

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.

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.

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

I always shoot my movies with score as certainly part of the dialogue. Music is dialogue. People don't think about it that way, but music is actually dialogue. And sometimes music is the final, finished, additional dialogue. Music can be one of the final characters in the film.

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.

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

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

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.

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