Alfonso Cuaron Quotes

Most people just half-watch TV. They watch TV while they are doing many other things in the environment of their home. So, what they are doing goes through their ears as much as through their eyes. In television, the narrative and characters are in the foreground of everything, because you are watching TV as you do other stuff.

For me, my films are not like my children. They are like my ex-wife. They gave me so much; I gave them so much; I loved them so much; we part ways, and it's OK, we part ways.

This is the thing I have with awards: If awards would make your movie more pretty, I would really get super excited about it. But your movie's done. You get awards, you don't get awards ... They don't make your movie more ugly or pretty.

I think it is something that is so important, to be very aware of the direction in which the 21st century is going with all this blind faith in democracy. And by the way, I am not against democracy - I am against the blind faith that is being put in democracy.

It's a cliche, but Americans are puritanical. In their movies, they are scared of sex, but they overindulge in violence. I could have cut a G-rated version of 'Y Tu Mama Tambien' that would have pleased the American ratings board, but it would have been five minutes long.

Learn from your experience shooting your film, and then move on to the next.

It's seldom that you find great moments in television. Usually you remember - in 'Breaking Bad' or any of these other great shows - you remember situations or characters. Not moments. But I have to say, I can make the same argument for mainstream movies, which have bad narratives and also no memorable moments.

Once I finish a film, I don't ever see it again. Never ever. I have never seen any of my films since I finished them.

As a director, you're only as good as your collaborators. You surround with collaborators that are going to understand what you're trying to do. Not only that, they're going to push and fight for what you're trying to do.

Experiencing this film in 2-D is only getting about 20 percent of the experience of 'Gravity.'

I have my misgivings about 3-D. I don't like the lack of blacks and whites, how it dulls the image, how the color gets corrupted. I don't necessarily like the experience of having heavy glasses in front of me.

The most important thematics in humanity I think that are completely universal and completely relatable from one person to the other. As long as, one more time going to back to the thematic, as long as you're truthful to that thematic, you can trust that that is going to transcend.

I believe that human beings are born first and given passports later. I'm really thankful for my journey. And it's a journey I didn't design.

I guess I have a short attention span! I'm interested in new worlds, new universes, new challenges.

The two real leads in 'Children of Men' are Clive Owen and the social environment. You know, this same movie without the social environment maybe is just like a generic chase movie.

Every film is difficult. Making films, you're always going to have problems, there's always going to be challenges.

I knew early on that I was a nerd and that films were my refuge. Those first few minutes before the lights went off, and you're alone in the theater waiting, were really pleasurable.

I left Mexico for artistic survival. If I had stayed, I would have been forced by the government, who control the movie business, to direct TV shows or commercials or infomercials for the government.

I understand the bad rap that 3-D is getting because the conversions are crappy and because the films aren't designed for 3-D. It's a completely different medium.

No 'rules.' What are you, British or something? I guess I'm too nice ... No wonder people take advantage of me.

When you're doing a film, narrative is your most important tool, but it's a tool to create a cinematographic experience, to create those moments that are beyond narrative, that are almost an abstraction of that moment that hits your psyche.

The way I see it, there are only two possible outcomes. Either I make it down there in one piece and I have one hell of a story to tell. Or I burn up in the next ten minutes. Either way, whichever way... no harm, no foul.

Because either way, it's going to be one hell of a ride! I'm ready.

There are fewer established rules in the way you tell a story for commercials than in features. It's a great little short story you get to play with.

What's the point of being an Australian guy traveling through India if you are going to go to India to meet other Australians?

There is a certain thing that you have to just stick to the plan, stick to what you want to do, and you try to work with studios and executives that they get it.

I love that process in which there is no safety net. Then the actor also can allow mistakes, because there's no such a thing as a mistake. You're working with good actors, that thing that starts as a mistake becomes actually the life of what is going to follow in the scene. I find that it is fantastic, and for me it is easier than for the actors.

I was 8 when we landed on the moon. I was so into the space program as a kid. Eventually, I realized it was very unlikely that a Mexican kid in the early '70s was going to be an astronaut.

I learned there's an amazing unexplored territory in terms of narrative. Before, I thought the unexplored territory was the form, the way you shoot a movie. Now, I'm learning about the beautiful marriage between form and narrative.

Cautionary tales were fantastic in the '70s.

'Y Tu Mama Tambien' is one of the first unrated movies to be nominated for an Academy Award for Best Original Screenplay. But many video stores won't take a movie that's not rated, so I had to make the movie an R.

We're born first humans then after they stamp our passport.

I produce the way I would love to be produced: In ways to create the best conditions to make your movie, but also to create a space in which the director calls the shots.

I really believe there is the possibility of something great that can happen in the right hands.

I used to be very controlling with visuals and editing, and I would pretty much craft the performances; now I have learned to trust the material and the actors.

My mom, she was, she studied chemistry. And later on she changed and majored, she changed later in her career, in her life and studied philosophy and then she did a perfect clash, connection between chemistry and philosophy and she became a witch.

You can write a whole fiction, and you're talking to people who have gone through that, in real life. But the truth of it is that when you're talking to those people, you don't care about your movie anymore. You just want to hear about what they have gone through. You want all of the details. It's amazing.

Story is important but the most important is the theme and how you're going to convey theme cinematically. I'm a believer also

If you want to keep on being relevant as a director, I think you have to embrace the times. And with the times come technologies and formats.

The only reason you make a movie is not to make or set out to do a good or a bad movie, it's just to see what you learn for the next one.

As a kid, I wanted to be an astronaut. And my own passion was that I wanted to be a film director. I realized that being an astronaut was not going to be an option, so I said, "Well, I'm going to be a director and do films in space."

I have this thing that, once I finish a movie, I never see it again.

I have to confess that I don't read much of what is written about me.