Mike Mills

Mike Mills
Michael Edward "Mike" Millsis an American multi-instrumentalist, singer, and composer who was a founding member of the alternative rock band R.E.M. Though known primarily as a bass guitarist, backing vocalist, and pianist, his musical repertoire also includes keyboards, guitar, and percussion instruments. He contributed to a majority of the band's musical compositions...
NationalityAmerican
ProfessionGuitarist
Date of Birth17 December 1958
CityOrange County, CA
CountryUnited States of America
Life doesn't just happen; it's constructed through the history of power. And that's something I am interested in and so is the art world: a world that's trying to engage socially, with a leftist slant, to work out how we got here.
To be honest, we have no control over what's going on with a movie, much less what people are going to think of it. Your whole life is wound up in it but you don't have control and you have to get used to being on that turbulent plane without trying to fly it. The less you think about all that the better.
The weird thing about grief, for me at least, was when each of my parents died, for a year or two afterwards I was pretty wildly brave - just willing to take life on.
I felt someone was revealing hard truths about themselves, revealing uneasy things about themselves, which I always find really generous, ... It makes my life easier when people say, 'Hey! I'm not perfect,' or, 'Hey! I've got flaws.' And he did it with such a sense of humor and such compassion for all those flaws, he was making us all a cushion to trip over and fall on, you know?
Life is too short for a half-rack.
The whole set was very intense, ... Lou and Kelli have some weird thing with each other.
There's some things that you learn as you're shooting, and as you're editing that are key, because when you start you don't have the brain that can finish it. You don't really know what it is, and that's the key job; figuring out what you actually have, not what you're dreaming of having.
Everyone talks to their dog, and then in your mind the dog talks back. A talking dog can provide the words that a stunted protagonist finds difficult to muster.
There's nothing like a movie. It's the one art form that can really make me cry, and the thing is, we're all filmmakers. We're all creating movies in our heads all the time on our internal projection screens. To have the experience of playing out that movie, and making it real, it was very moving... in fact, I was crying my eyes out last night because I was thinking of how special the whole thing was,
I think I make films to help bolster and feed the part of me that wants to remain in a positive relationship with the world and to engage in it. So hopefully in non-sentimental ways, I'm trying to make something that helps make me happy.
We never give up until the legislative session is over.
I am definitely writing letters to lots of directors in my mind when I'm making a film. I'm chasing Woody Allen and Godard and Milos Forman and all these people.
I'd known Elliot for a while, ... He was kind of 'off the Earth' on the heroin thing.
Shooting a film is like a kismet quest. You have thirty days and you need magic to happen. So that's why I wear suits. I'm praying to the gods, and I'm doing everything I can to respect the powers of the world.