Paul Haggis
Paul Haggis
Paul Edward Haggisis a Canadian director, screenwriter, and producer. He is best known as screenwriter and producer for consecutive Best Picture Oscar winners, 2004's Million Dollar Baby and 2005's Crash, the latter of which he also directed...
NationalityCanadian
ProfessionScreenwriter
Date of Birth10 March 1953
CityLondon, Canada
CountryCanada
antagonist both characters enriched influenced
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.
characters knowledge
You have to have empathy, knowledge and compassion for your characters if you're a writer.
absolutely characters fears partly recognize single work
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.
characters create damaged drawn easy empathetic good guy strive sympathy
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.
character wanted
When I started to allow the characters to go where they wanted to go, I just had to follow.
real writing character
We all have these tendencies in us that could go this way or that. I think that's the real key in writing. To look at a character without judgment.
character giving judging
We give you characters we'd feel very comfortable judging, and then go: 'Oh yeah? Watch this'.
character writing men
Now we really like to put people in boxes. As men, we do it because we don't understand characters that aren't ourselves and we aren't willing to put ourselves in the skin of those characters and women, I think, terrify us. We tend not to write women as human beings. It's cartoons we're making now. And that's a shame.
character worst asks
Usually the characters are where I start. Then I continually ask myself, 'What's the worst thing that could happen to this character?'
attractive best best-friends character felt friend hero heroes himself pushed rather seen strong supposed weak
I'd only seen him as the hero or the foppish best friend - so I felt predisposed to like him. On the other hand, Granger's character is not particularly attractive at all - 1950s film heroes were supposed to be strong and confident, yet here is this rather tediously weak man, who allows himself to be pushed around by women.
challenged dumbest either incredibly people reasons various
You either get the movie or you don't, and if you don't get it, it's just the dumbest movie of all time. Some people are really challenged by it. It makes them incredibly uncomfortable, I think, and they come up with various reasons why that's not their fault.
hair hoping point tiny twist view
I was hoping to do something to twist people's point of view just a tiny bit, to make them look at things just a hair differently.
affected cinema discovered ends european playing
When I discovered European filmmakers, it affected me so deeply. It redefined what cinema could be. I mean, 'Blow-Up' ends with a dead body and mimes playing tennis. What?
affect argue cause filmmaker love people seeking worst
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.