Best quotes by Sean Durkin

Sean Durkin

Sean Durkin

Canadian film director, screenwriter and producer

Timothy Sean Durkin (born December 9, 1981) is a Canadian film director, screenwriter and producer. He won the Dramatic Directing Award at the 2011 Sundance Film Festival for Martha Marcy May Marlene. His short film, Mary Last Seen, on the same theme as Martha, won the award for best short film at the 2010 Cannes Film Festival Directors' Fortnight. In 2013, Durkin directed the Channel 4 drama series Southcliffe, starring Sean Harris and Rory Kinnear. His second film, The Nest, premiered in 2020.

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All CategoriesAbout horror movies

Horror moviesI love the first hour of a horror movie, the fear and anticipation. Then, when it gets bloody, I lose interest.

A big fear of working with an actor that's never been a lead in a film before is that you're going to have to work really hard to pull a performance out of her.

Well, first of all, making films is a collaborative process. You need people. You need people you trust and love and who are your friends. People you can work with.

I would like to do a sports movie.

I won't rewrite on set, but I'll just trim the fat.

I went to my first college to play soccer.

I wasn't good enough to be a professional soccer player obviously but that was my first goal in life.

I was really into writing short fiction and also photography when I was a kid.

I always try to keep the confidence of the actors, and try my best to make them feel comfortable or confident.

Filmmaking is a real craft.

What I learned from directing, I learned from soccer, where it's like a coach-player relationship.

When I was a little kid, I loved horror films. I always liked being scared.

I'm interested in adapting books and all sorts of things.

It's sort of one ongoing process where writing ends and directing starts.

I'm a believer in film school.

Sports teams, people who follow sports teams, religion, churches, work - any company, I find that people just generally have a need to belong to something larger than themselves.

In editing, it's amazing how you choose the in and out points. What you cut on is everything for creating tension. It's amazing how expanding a shot by five seconds can just ruin the tension.

You know, when you're isolated on set for like a month, people like to get rowdy.

You can't write something to please someone.

When you write, no matter what, it ends up personal.

When I was a kid, I was afraid of large group of conforming people.

When I hire actors I believe in their abilities.

When people leave cults, they don't know that they left a cult.

I remember being at school during morning meeting and looking around at everybody, 350 kids, saying a prayer. We're all very young and no one knows what it means, and I remember feeling strange that people were just repeating words that they didn't understand. I refused to participate. For some reason I always rejected it, but respectfully.

The trappings of a religious cult tend to fall into candlelit ceremonies and robes and group chanting and singing and prayer.

The way brainwashing works is subtle and takes a long time.