Takashi Miike Quotes

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Takashi Miike

Profession : Director

Birth : August 24, 1960

I don't choose to make low-budget films. But that is the reality of surviving in the Japanese film industry. However, the trade off is, since we're working on small budgets, we have freedom. You can't buy this freedom with money. With this freedom, I think there are an infinite number of possibilities.

Takashi Miike

Audiences are an unknown mystery to me, so I can't really predict anything. For me, the best audience is myself, my crew, and the actors.

Takashi Miike

I actually think women are stronger and more capable than men, that men are actually dancing in the palms of women, who are running the show.

Takashi Miike

I don't slot actors into the image of a character that's already built. I build characters by listening to the voice and the story inside the heart of each actor. Art and life are linked, and expressed through my actors.

Takashi Miike

Maybe many directors are trying to create their own style of filmmaking, or to respond to audiences that come expect a certain style from them. But I don't care about that - I don't intend to have a 'Miike' style. I just pour myself into each film, enjoy it, and then what comes out just seems to have a 'Miike' style.

Takashi Miike

I always find another version of myself in each of my films.

Takashi Miike

For the birth of one champion, there are many young boxers behind them who had setbacks. In terms of that, I think boxing is very dramatic.

Takashi Miike

I do enjoy children's shows.

Takashi Miike

I do not proactively approach Hollywood, but also I do not always turn down offers. But since I'm living as a movie director, I have a desire to shoot something like 'This is a Hollywood movie!' at least once in my lifetime.

Takashi Miike

There are fragments of me in all my characters.

Takashi Miike

The directors whose films scare me the most, are the ones who carefully hide the aggression in the background, and don't show it directly.

Takashi Miike

I think that every character, no matter how different they may be perceived, they all have their beautiful moments. All humans do. All people do.

Takashi Miike

I'm just trying to make movies simply about life. Naturally, when I'm doing that, horror, violence, and all those kinds of things get mixed in. All those things happen in reality.

Takashi Miike

I have three kids. Now they're all grown up, but when they were little, every time I would start a new project, they would say, 'So dad, are you making a movie we can watch or one we cannot watch?' That's the kind of stuff they would ask. People around me - family and friends - usually know when to watch and when not to watch.

Takashi Miike

In general, I'm probably seen as an unusual director.

Takashi Miike

For me, no matter what movie I make, no matter what the genre or the budget, they all have the same theme at their core: fear of death and happiness about living.

Takashi Miike

I believe that when people try to live their life at the fullest, there's a certain laughter that comes out of it. The more they try to live their life seriously, the funnier it is.

Takashi Miike

I myself have always had that secret desire to become something completely different and enact revenge on certain things. So I do that through my movies. My desires become reality in the movie because it can't become real in real life.

Takashi Miike

Originally, I was an assistant director. For many people in that role, becoming a director is the ultimate goal. But, in my case, that wasn't my goal at all. I just had fun doing it. The schedule was hard, but I enjoyed it greatly so I just kept at it.

Takashi Miike