Paul Haggis Quotes

I don't think it's the job of filmmakers to give anybody answers. I do think, though, that a good film makes you ask questions of yourself as you leave the theatre.

— Paul Haggis

“Film is an emotional medium; it's not a logical medium. It's not an intellectual medium, so every decision you make as a filmmaker and an actor has to be emotional in some way, even in the rejection of logic.”

— Paul Haggis

I am really drawn to damaged characters, and I have a lot of sympathy for them. Making those complicated characters empathetic is something to strive for. It's too easy to create a good guy or a good girl.

— Paul Haggis

I wrote an episode for 'thirtysomething,' and a producer said, 'That's really good, but what is it about? What does it say about you? What questions are you asking yourself?' I had never thought about that. This comment changed who I was, because it made me look at my own soul, the dark corners in my soul, and accept that dark side.

— Paul Haggis

“I have so many questions about love. How do you win at it? Especially if you're in a relationship with an impossible person? What if you believe in someone who's completely untrustworthy, who at their core can't even believe in themselves?”

— Paul Haggis

“We give you characters we'd feel very comfortable judging, and then go: 'Oh yeah? Watch this'.”

— Paul Haggis

“I just love actors, and I've always loved actors. I empathize with their job. Everyone thinks it's easy, and it ain't. To be that vulnerable and brave on camera is tough. The more they reveal themselves, the more we love them, but there's a lot of truth in what they're showing.”

— Paul Haggis

“I'm such an antsy type of person. I can't write in a room without other people around. I write in coffee shops.”

— Paul Haggis

“'Crash' came from personal experience. I saw things inside me from living in L.A. that made me uncomfortable. I saw horrible things in people and saw terrible things in myself. I saw a black director completely humiliated, but the three people around me just thought it was funny. 'No,' I said, 'that is selling your soul.'”

— Paul Haggis

“All my work is partly biographical. I mean, 'Crash' was absolutely that, absolutely. But you just wouldn't recognize me in most of those characters. But I was in every single one of those characters in 'Crash,' because those were all fears that I had felt. Things that I had thought in my deepest, darkest heart.”

— Paul Haggis

“As artists, we have to be brave. If we aren't brave, we aren't artists.”

— Paul Haggis

“As a general rule, I don't plan to travel with my Oscars, but we may have to make an exception.”

— Paul Haggis

“I don't know if 'Crash' is a good movie or not because I didn't set out to make a movie. Really, what I wanted to do is more of a social experiment.”

— Paul Haggis

“You have to have empathy, knowledge and compassion for your characters if you're a writer.”

— Paul Haggis

My one guiding rule for success in the film world would be, be careful of your friends.

— Paul Haggis

“I moved to Hollywood when I was 22. I was married. I had a kid right away. And I had worked as a furniture mover amongst various other jobs, and I'd work eight, ten hours a day to support my family - and I'd come home and write for two hours a night or two and a half, or three hours a night.”

— Paul Haggis

“I miss my mother very, very much.”

— Paul Haggis

The great majority of Scientologists I know are good people who are genuinely interested in improving conditions on this planet and helping others.

— Paul Haggis

“I made a very good living as a bad writer. I wrote a lot of comedies, 'Diff'rent Strokes,' 'Facts of Life,' while all my friends were doing the good shows, like 'Cheers,' but I loved it because I got to be a working writer in Hollywood.”

— Paul Haggis

“Even a modicum of celebrity is hard to deal with. You see it with actors and directors all the time.”

— Paul Haggis

“Every 10 years, I know less about love and relationships. The smarter I get, the less I know.”

— Paul Haggis

“I thought 'The King's Speech' was great.”

— Paul Haggis

Irish and Italian are my two favourite people.

— Paul Haggis

“There's nothing more painful than writing.”

— Paul Haggis

“You don't make a film because the audience is ready for it. You make a film because you have questions that are in your gut.”

— Paul Haggis

“I'm a filmmaker, and I was most influenced by Hitchcock's films. How he could plant such deep enriched characters and then make us care both about the antagonist and protagonist was masterful.”

— Paul Haggis

“My kids paid the price for my career. We can say it's for our family, but it almost never is. It's about us. It's just some of us can pretend better than others.”

— Paul Haggis

“The worst thing you can do to a filmmaker is to walk out of his film and go, 'That was a nice movie.' But if you can cause people to walk out and then argue about the film on the sidewalk ... I think we're all seeking dissension, and we love to affect an audience.”

— Paul Haggis

“We never did just one take. Multiple takes. Many. I did a bunch. Sometimes I do one take. Sometimes I did 20.”

— Paul Haggis

“What I love about writing is the contradictions we all embody as human beings.”

— Paul Haggis

“Usually the characters are where I start. Then I continually ask myself, 'What's the worst thing that could happen to this character?'”

— Paul Haggis

“A creative person has to believe in the unseen and the untouched.”

— Paul Haggis

“I just want to thank people who take big risks in their daily lives when there aren't cameras rolling. I want to dedicate this award to people who stand up for peace and against injustice and intolerance.”

— Paul Haggis

“I've lived in America for many years. I mean, I love being a Canadian, but I truly identify with America. I love America so much.”

— Paul Haggis

“The hope is what America represents to the world and has always represented - the hope for a better life and a better world. We have a duty to protect and support that hope with not just our words, but with our deeds.”

— Paul Haggis

“As soon as you think you know Clint Eastwood, you don't know Clint Eastwood.”

— Paul Haggis

“All the studios are owned by multinational corporations, which are not usually bastions of the left. So all the actors, writers, and directors - or at least a great majority of them - live in fear because we're all insecure, we all want that next job, we all want to be loved, and we don't want to piss off some studio chief who won't hire us for the next movie.”

— Paul Haggis

“I wanted to do a political film that is as nonpartisan as can be, because I wanted to do a story that was American. I wanted to tell an American tragedy.”

— Paul Haggis

You hear this story that we're all on the left, but when there's a demonstration, you count how many actors actually come out. If there's a half dozen, that would be a big day.

— Paul Haggis

“We think we know what's right. With excessive pride comes blindness.”

— Paul Haggis

“Walk through Santa Monica and try to find somebody who knows a young man or woman who's in this war. Here, war is an intellectual concept. If you lose your son or daughter, it's no longer an intellectual matter.”

— Paul Haggis

When we're threatened, it's very easy to appeal to our basic natures.

— Paul Haggis

“Right after we invaded Iraq, I put a sign on my lawn that said "War is not the answer." That sign was either defaced, ripped up, or stolen every week. I had to replace that sign twelve times.”

— Paul Haggis

“If you're in a relationship and you try to trust somebody who's completely untrustworthy, when trust is the basis of any relationship and everyone else says not to trust, is love transformative.”

— Paul Haggis

“I like to really respect the audience and let them come through on answers.”

— Paul Haggis

When I started to allow the characters to go where they wanted to go, I just had to follow.

— Paul Haggis

“You'd be surprised how many writers, or how many actors, if they miss a paycheck or two, they've got nothing. As a writer or an actor you can have four or five jobs in one year and then have none for two years.”

— Paul Haggis

“United States could be a great country. It needs to be a great country. It's our responsibility as citizens to make that happen, every single one of us.”

— Paul Haggis

“I just always try to find an interesting story and tell it well. That's a hard enough thing to do, whether it's a piece of fiction or it's a small piece of reality. I just look for good story.”

— Paul Haggis

“We are manipulated by fear and the fear of others, and how we're often manipulated into doing things and voting in ways that are against our own best interest. Look at healthcare. People will tell you that healthcare is socialism and communism, and they're doing this while their wife needs an operation and their kid needs braces.”

— Paul Haggis