Quotes

I turned down the OBE because it's not a club you want to join when you look at the villains who've got it. It's all the things I think are despicable: patronage, deferring to the monarchy and the name of the British Empire, which is a monument of exploitation and conquest.

Stalin has caused Socialism greater damage than anyone else.

Why do they say I hate my country? And what does that even mean? Am I supposed to hate my town, am I supposed to hate all English people, or my government? And if I do hate my government, does that mean I hate my country? It's a democratic duty to criticize the government.

A movie isn't a political movement, a party or even an article. It's just a film. At best it can add its voice to public outrage.

I think our TV news editors are still sometimes using the language of government propaganda. We still hear the term 'war on terror' for an illegal war. We're still hearing the words reform and modernization when what we really mean is privatization and public greed.

In '45 we had probably the best reforming government we've had, in the Attlee (Clement Attlee) government. It was still a social democrat government, it wasn't a socialist government, but the consciousness of people was that we were a collective and we were stronger together than as individuals. And obviously out of that came the health service and public ownership of utilities and transport and a sense of collective endeavour. People had made that sacrifice to win the war, so there was a general sense that things would get better from there. The consciousness was: we've achieved things and we have things that will never be taken away from us, like the health service, like public ownership of the mines, of the transport, of the gas, electric - it was ours. And now, that's gone, we've just given it away... Allowed politicians to give it to their friends. And the cult of the individual, from '79 onwards, which New Labour has followed and which dominated the party, has just killed that. So the consciousness now is not: "How can we work together?" It's: "How can I get on, at the expense of you?" So that's pretty horrible.

[on his film Jimmy's Hall (2014)] We not only shot on film, we cut on film. It's very good because it's not as quick as digital cutting, so you consider what you do more carefully. It's a much more human way of working. The film industry is like any other - it's about speed and cutting the people doing the job. We're going to carry on, cutting on film.

If films were to have a big influence, it would probably be very negative because they would probably endorse great wealth. They would endorse America as the home of peace and democracy and the defender of freedom.

Traditionally when young people were growing up, they were introduced into the adult world through work. They don't have that now. I think it's surprising [rioting] hasn't happened before.

Britishness was about empire, Britishness was about slavery, oppression, hence the Butcher's Apron. Britishness has a long legacy which we want to disown.

[on De Sica's Bicycle Thieves (1948) and the influence of Italian Neorealism] Those were a group of films we absorbed when we were young. and have stayed as a benchmark. You have it in the back of your mind but nothing more than that.

[on his threat to retire after Jimmy's Hall (2014)] It was at the moment of maximum pressure, just before we started to shoot. And I just said "I can't do this any more". I was away quite a long time on this one, and it was a large undertaking - a period film with a big cast. I was reaching the point where I just wasn't sure that I could carry it off any more. But that was at the start of production. Of course, by the time you get to the end you feel rather less daunted by it.

What I've always tried to do is just to capture the truth of the moment. Preparation is really important for actors; they need to know who they are, where they're from, and the experiences up to the point that we make the film. We use improvisations, research, and so on. But when there's a surprise, that's the hardest thing to act. Even with brilliant actors, you'll get it once but the second time it's more difficult. For example, in Jimmy's Hall (2014), there's a scene where there's a group of women singing a song, and the Free State army bursts in. Well, obviously we didn't tell them they were going to burst in. So that shock is real. And it's very interesting; one woman registers it with a little involuntary jump, but she doesn't turn round to look immediately. Well, by the second take of course people know it's coming, so you don't get that.

[on the 2017 British election results with unexpected gains for Labour] It is about the depths of poverty and the use of hunger by the government as a weapon. People are revolted by that. They are revolted by the Tories' politics and [British prime minister] Theresa May's manner reinforced that lack of empathy. She doesn't have normal conversations. She speaks in a robotic manner. She doesn't seem to understand what people are saying to her. The more she says, the bigger the hole she digs for herself. I hope she keeps talking. [June 2017]

Radiohead are important to a lot of people around the world, not just because they are accomplished and very distinguished musicians, but also because they are perceived to be a progressive political band. None of us want to see them make the mistake of appearing to endorse or cover up Israeli oppression. If they go to Tel Aviv, they may never live it down. I don't know who is advising Radiohead, but their stubborn refusal to engage with the many critics of their ill-advised concert in Tel Aviv suggests to me that they only want to hear one side - the one that supports apartheid.

[2014 interview] I've had a very easy film-making journey. Hollywood is a deeply unattractive place; why go and swim in a sea with sharks if you can bathe somewhere else? And the work that comes out compared with the talent that goes in is not great. When you look at the European directors who have gone there, their work is always, to my mind, invariably better in Europe. Look at Milos Forman, whose Czech films were inspirational for us. I only feel able to say that I don't care for his Hollywood films so much because I like his early films so much.

A broad church doesn't work when the choir is trying to stab the vicar in the back.

[on the current trend for 'Superhero' films, 2019] I find them boring. They're made as commodities ... like hamburgers ... It's about making a commodity which will make profit for a big corporation - they're a cynical exercise. They're a market exercise and it has nothing to do with the art of cinema.

[on being asked if he will ever retire, 2019] I don't know. It just seems a silly, arbitrary thing to say. I mean, you stay engaged with the world. You don't go into a cave and not know what's going on. I want to know [what] the score is on Saturday. I want to see what's in the newspapers. I want to be part of the world, not somehow locked away. If the medium you express yourself in is sound and picture and image and character and drama, then obviously that stays in your mind. So why would you walk away? It doesn't make sense to me. We're citizens first, aren't we, before we're anything? There's no way I'd stop. Keep turning to the sports page to see what the score was last night. You know? You stay in the world.

[on being asked if he had a favourite of his own films, 2019] No. I'm afraid it's always the same answer. The films are like your children. You can't have a favourite son. And what you remember is the people you worked with, and they've all been extraordinary over the years. So, no, you couldn't have a favourite; it'd be unfair on the others. But you cherish them all in different ways, even... well, particularly, the ones that didn't work out so well. Always the way.

[press conference for Sorry We Missed You (2019) at the 2019 Cannes Film Festival] When I was young, and for many years after, you were told if you had a skill, if you had a craft, you would find a job for life and you could bring up a family on the wage. And the inexorable change from that security - the insecurity where people can be hired and fired at a day's notice, where people are on contracts where the employer makes no commitment to how much work they will get or how much they will earn. Working through agencies - again no security - or as Kris [Kris Hitchen] is in the film, being so-called "self-employed", where the worker takes all the risk and the employer is in the fortunate position - he takes no risk and the worker has to exploit himself or herself. So it's the perfect situation for the big companies; no risk and the worker has to run himself into the ground, without being told to - no strict boss to crack the whip - and that's the inexorable change that's happened. And it's not capitalism failing; it's capitalism working, as it always will. So we talked about this and Paul [Paul Laverty] first mentioned the idea of how that would refract into family relationships, how that determines the choices families have, and determines their relationships. So we talked about it a lot and we went to meet people and Paul did most of the research at this point, and then sketched the main characters, and then we talked again and so it developed.

They've rewritten history so that it doesn't exist. It's like the photograph of Trotsky that Stalin cut out. The man doesn't exist in history. Jeremy Corbyn doesn't exist in history now.

[on "The Guardian" and the BBC] As part of the liberal media, when those two led the silence on this extraordinary story, then of course the right-wing press will make the most of it.

The manipulation of the rules and the straight aggression has been unbelievable. It should be unbelievable: the manipulation of rules against the left, the imposition of candidates, expulsions and the fact that at least 200,000 people as far as we know - and probably more - have left the Labour party under Starmer. It's not even a news story! If ever we needed a clear example of political manipulation by the broadcasters, there it is.

[on Holocaust denial] History is for all of us to discuss. All history is our common heritage to discuss and analyze. The founding of the State of Israel, for example, based on ethnic cleansing, is there for us to discuss ... So don't try to subvert that by false stories of antisemitism.

[press conference for The Old Oak (2023) at the 2023 Cannes Film Festival] The origin of the film was having worked in the north-east for two films, we saw the areas that were most deprived, most neglected, with a strong industrial past with the solidarity that industrial struggles bring and yet now left abandoned, and we also saw the refugees from the Syrian war being placed in areas where they would not be seen and the north-east per head of population had more Syrian refugees than anywhere else in the country, but they had the least in infrastructure, in work, in social services. Why? Why is that? Because the government doesn't want you to know they're there even. So on that basis, Paul [Paul Laverty], Rebecca [Rebecca O'Brien] and I thought there might be a film here and then Paul began the research and Paul created the characters.

Exaggerated or false charges of antisemitism have coincided with the election of Jeremy Corbyn as leader. Discredit his supporters and you weaken his leadership ... We will not be intimidated.