What got me into making movies was that I wanted to be a journalist.

A publisher friend of mine suggested that I write a book about my grandfather, who had just died. I had nothing else to fill my empty days with, so I started work on this book. While researching it - watching lots of movies, talking to moviemakers - I became interested in movies and started making documentaries.

The interesting thing to me is that somehow the future of movies will become a more social thing... I think that people will see them communally and will be talking about them as they're watching them, in a way, and immediately after watching them, and they'll all become the conversation. I think that's pretty interesting.

Sometimes people give away more by not saying something.

If you can understand, you can feel compassion.

In my early career as a documentarian, I suppose I was trying to make films which - where it was all about making a big cinematic statement, and I think with 'Marley,' I slightly changed my direction and adopted a more mellow approach.

I'm not doing any more music films!

If you want to do 'Sword & Sandals' movies, people think that means it equals 'epic.'

I was a teenager in the '80s, and I was always a bit dismissive of Houston, as I think a lot of people who considered themselves 'cool music fans' were. She was poppy, bubble gum, making music not considered very cool. But you can't help but dance to some of those songs or feel emotionally affected by 'I Will Always Love You.'

Most people in Uganda have something good to say about Amin - 'He was funny; he gave us pride to be African.'

Coming from documentaries, my biggest challenge was to understand actors' psychologies. American actors take it all very seriously; British actors don't enter into all this methody way of doing things.

You can get good performances in quite sizable roles from people who have never been in front of a camera, people who maybe have never been in front of a movie theater.

In some ways, making documentaries is like being a journalist. You interview people and then use the bits you want to use as opposed to the bits they want you to use.

The relationship between director and subject can become very intense. It's a bit like therapy, with lots of transferences going on. It's easy to feel guilty.

It's obviously presumptuous in some ways to talk about somebody's sexuality who's not here to describe themselves.

When you're trying to make a film, you're trying to find a way to love your subject, and you want your audience to love your subject.

As a filmmaker, I'm interminably curious and nosy, but certain times you meet people and think, 'I don't want to push you too hard because I can see this is painful for you.'

I've done a few celebrity-related things, and I think on the first one - about Mick Jagger - I got stung and was not able to make the film I wanted to make.

People listen to The Beatles, but while they were muscially influential, they weren't culturally influential in quite the same way. You can go into the back of beyond in a little Indian village, and they will listen to Bob Marley. But they're not going to be listening to The Beatles or The Rolling Stones.

The thing with newspapers is that they are a filter. We're relying on the editors of that paper to be a filter and to tell you that this is worth reading about, this is quality, and this is quite reliable.

When you're an outsider and going into a culture like America, it's easier to stay away from any cliches because you're not really aware of what they are.

Young people read their news online; they expect to get their news for free.

It is hard to find the soul of Mick Jagger. It is very hidden. I think his true personality has receded so far behind the facade that he can no longer find the real person himself.

Documentary makers use other people's lives as their raw material, and that is morally indefensible.

I did not want to depict Al Gashey as evil. I wanted him to come across as someone who did what he did for reasons that were compelling. Whether or not we agree with him is a different matter.

I think my brother always wanted to be a film producer.

I went through a period of not watching fiction.

The submarine genre is a category with all its own rules. But shooting on water is famously tough.

I don't think life gets any better than sitting in the sun while a legend of French cinema tells you stories about making 'Belle de Jour' and other wonderful films, and eating great food.

I suppose that the Western has always been a kind of mold to which you could pour the concerns of the day, but have them seen in the simple terms of the Western, of one alley or whatever.

It's so nice to be totally artistically free.

Every film that is made about the past is always a reflection of the present.

I remember going to the university film club to see 'The Life And Death Of Colonel Blimp' one night and being bowled over. It was one of the most beautiful films I'd ever seen. And it felt so personal.

People think that the Italians invented neorealism, but actually, Humphrey Jennings did. He was revolutionary in using non-professional actors in his films, and he got extraordinary performances out of them.

I think there's always been interest in Bob Marley.

Elvis Presley's estate is making 30 million a year, and they say that Marley shouldn't be, but he is from a much poorer part of the world, and a lot more people need the money.

I like to take a little of what I learned in fiction and apply it to documentary and vice versa.

I'm a cynical person who's normally attracted to the dark side of things.

If you go to pretty much everywhere in the developing world, you will find Bob Marley murals, and you'll find people playing his music.

It's interesting to me that the Arab Spring started in Tunisia, and in the marches, people were singing 'Get up, stand up, stand up for your rights.'

We should not confuse having a Flip camera with making a documentary.

I think we're all greedy. Who do you know who says, 'I have enough! I don't need any more!'? It's part of human nature.

I was fascinated by making a submarine movie, inspired by the Kursk disaster. This idea of being trapped down at the bottom of the sea seemed so terrifying. I was very interested in making a sub film which wasn't a military film. You think, Well, why are they there, then, if they're not in the military? Oh, well, they must be looking for treasure.

When we made 'Life in a Day,' we asked people around the globe to record their lives on a single ordinary day. When we were cutting that film, we talked about what it might be like if we chose a day that already had significance to people. The result is 'Christmas in a Day.'

The things that are hardest to shoot are the things where you want people just to feel very natural, and you want to do love scenes, and you want to do just kids hanging out and trying to get them to relax.

I recommend to any of you, that's always a good way to make a film: use the interesting bits.

The amazing thing about Bob Marley is that there is no moving footage of him at all for the first ten or eleven years of his career. From 1962 to 1973, there's nothing, not a single frame.

It's always nice to have the same people that you are familiar with and shorthand with, obviously, to be around you.

I think everything that I've done, I've been involved with for longer. Either you develop it from scratch, or you take something, and you develop it, and you work on the script, but I'm not sure how good I'd be at just sort of taking a piece of material and being a director for hire like that.

John Lennon made wonderful music, which people listen to as music. Nobody around the world is living their life according to the precepts of John Lennon.