Sam Taylor-Wood

Sam Taylor-Wood
Samantha Louise "Sam" Taylor-Johnson OBEis an English filmmaker, photographer and visual artist. Her directorial feature film debut came in 2009 with Nowhere Boy, a film based on the childhood experiences of the Beatles songwriter and singer John Lennon. She is one of a group of artists known as the Young British Artists...
NationalityEnglish
ProfessionPhotographer
Date of Birth4 March 1967
distance thinking defining-moments
I think you only see experiences as defining moments with distance.
black-and-white thinking people
I have a massive phobia for schedules and calendars. I need people to tell me where I need to be. I can't bear to see it in black and white. I think it's a fear of being pinned down.
children thinking years
I'd love to have more children. If I'm still clear after five years, I'll think again.
thinking people decision
I think people are frightened of women making big decisions.
love-life thinking sometimes
I love life. I think it's fantastic. Sometimes it deals hard things, and when it deals great things, you have to seize them.
love heart thinking
People in love don't see gender, colour or religion. Or age. It's about the other person, the one that you love and who loves you. You don't think of them in terms of a label. You just go with your heart.
focus future hard life mortality plenty seize stared whatever
I've been through plenty in my life where I've really had to focus on the day ahead... because, as I know, the future is, you know, whatever the future is... Once you've stared mortality that hard in the face, you really seize the day.
britain scarlet
Britain can sometimes feel like a very small village, and you're this, I dunno, scarlet woman they're all gossiping about.
create strange time
I struggle if I have chaos around me, but at the same time, if I don't have it, I'm uncomfortable. It's a strange thing: If I don't have chaos, I create it.
cancer colon felt followed grasp mastectomy
When I had cancer - of the colon first, followed by breast cancer and a mastectomy - my motto used to be 'Drips by day, Prada by night.' I felt that I had to grasp it in the same way as you'd take on any challenge.
cameraman endlessly helpless quite similar total trying work
My work is made on lines similar to those of a film production. A lot of my work is kind of bureaucratic, endlessly phoning up people, trying to find the cameraman and the lighting man, because I am a total technology-phobe, quite helpless with equipment.
fears patient people primary saying second seen terrible
I had two primary cancers, which was pretty unusual. And when I got the second one, people told me such terrible bad-news stories, they instigated fears that weren't there in the first place. I do remember with such gratitude one doctor saying to me, 'Two primaries? That's nothing. I've seen a patient with six.'
fought
I feel lucky to be getting older. The fact that I made it to 30 and then 40 was big enough. So I can't get too down on getting older; otherwise, it kind of undoes everything I've fought for.
good production shout
Seeing a new play in a first-time production is so exciting - when it's good, you want to shout from the rooftops.