Yorgos Lanthimos

'The Lobster,' at some point, was my most accessible film. Then I made 'The Killing of a Sacred Deer,' which turned out to be not as accessible as 'The Lobster.' It was the film I wanted to make and the story I wanted to tell.

Having a couple of films that were successful internationally has made the film community aware of the films coming out of Greece.

Of course I know what works for me and what kind of tone I want my films to have.

I'm very open to making films anywhere in the world.

I work very closely with my co-writer, Efthimis Filippou. Ideas either start from him or me, and then the other one develops it, and it's a constant conversation.

I think you can tell a lot about people if you observe them as they're observing.

I enjoy sometimes focusing on a character in a scene that's not actually doing the main action or the talking.

I don't make long-term plans, for sure.

I never knew that I would even be making English-language films.

There are things to love about filmmaking in Greece. People are generous: If you get along well with others, the people around you will give more than they might otherwise be willing to give, more than they're supposed to.

Most acting is very melodramatic. It's not what you see in people.

Uncertainty helps keep actors on edge.

The best way to watch a film is to not know anything about the person who made it.

We were fortunate enough to shoot 'Alps' - write the script and shoot it - right after 'Dogtooth' premiered in Cannes. So we didn't just sit around and wait to figure out what to do because 'Dogtooth' was successful. We just wanted to make another film fast, so we just went ahead and did it.

I always try and decide what I'm interested in, and I just do that.

I make films that are what they are. Some people like them, and some people don't.

I want all the mistakes to be mine, and I want to take responsibility for everything even if I fail. Whatever the project is, I need to have the final say.

I just do things that I'm interested in making and work with the people I'm interested in working with, and it's very important for me to maintain the creative control because, otherwise, I just don't want to do it.

No studio picks up the phone after seeing 'Dogtooth' and goes, like, 'We have the next superhero movie.' Though if one did, that would be an interesting studio to work with.

I'm just trying to progress with every film I make and become better.

I made three films in Greece, and they're made under very specific, very limited conditions.

There's much more activity in England than in Greece. Or at least there's a lot more development, which obviously brings another set of problems.

I'm interested in many different things. I guess I just want to evolve.

Even today, I'm not sure why I make films or what makes me want films. I think it's other people's films. Whenever I see a really great film, I think, 'I want to make a film like that.' And then I never do.

I learned about making films by going into advertising, making commercials.

I never think in metaphors or fully make those kind of associations myself. I just lay down a complex situation and hope things arise from that.

I used to be quite negative about going back to Greece and making something, but there is a certain kind of freedom that I've experienced while I was making films in Greece that is hard to replicate elsewhere.

Telling a story is the way of exploring so many different things - human behavior, society, whatever existence.

When people don't understand what they're watching, a lot of what they perceive has to do with who they themselves are.

Everybody has a love/hate relationship with their own country.

As long as I can make the films I want to make in decent conditions, I am happy.

It's weird to try and identify a nationality for a film.

I make films to explore concepts and raise questions, not tell the audience what to think.

Most times, women are seen through the male gaze, so they are often shown as housewives, girlfriends, or objects of desire.

If actors are trying to convey, in a smart way, the context of the scene, that becomes too self-conscious.

It's hard for me to consider something in cinema or theater as something realistic.

I feel kind of offended when I watch films, and everything is explained to me - you know, laying out how I should feel from one scene to the next.

The most important thing is to allow gaps and openings for people to make up their own minds - I don't want my film to be pretending to have one important truth to tell anyone.

Yeah, it shouldn't be an issue. Stories about women, about men, about homosexuals, about heterosexuals. We shouldn't point at what it is.

I think children are really violent with each other often.

Don't think too hard. Just be present, and things will reveal themselves.

The actors bring their own stuff and thoughts, and most of the time, I don't want to know what they are. It allows me to have more distance and observe what they're doing without having the knowledge of what they have in their minds, so I can see clearly how that feels to me.

Whenever a film doesn't follow to the letter the preset strict conventional rules of today's commercial cinema, it's considered weird.

I am not interested in representing reality. Actually, I am interested in representing reality, but that doesn't mean a naturalistic approach, which I think is kind of impossible.

The first time I was paid was with 'The Lobster,' because with the Greek films, we just had to pay ourselves - work for free while making commercials in order to survive.

I always loved films, and when I decided to go to film school, it was with the excuse that I would go into making commercials, because that would be a proper profession, and people wouldn't think I was crazy.

I think you can be much truer to real emotions and reality by creating something that on the surface seems artificial but, by then putting everything together in the end, is much more impactful than trying to use realism in every individual element of the film.

Try to place the camera somewhere where you get most of the information from there, so you don't need to have too many shots and be too explanatory and expositional about the scene.

By employing a certain sense of humor, you essentially get more serious about things and show conflict more effectively than if you were overly dramatic or only violent because that's a one-way approach that just forces audiences to watch something appalling.

You tend to be more attentive when you shoot on film because, you know, it costs more, and everybody needs to be focused when you're filming something. Everybody considers it something valuable and precious, so everybody's focused.