Tobias Lindholm Quotes

Denmark is a country built on a commercial fleet. That's basically what we have been doing. We're just a small country of islands, and every family has a sailor. So, in many ways, my father was a sailor before I was born.

In 2007 and 2008, the first two Danish ships were hijacked. I started to research it. I've had the idea of writing in this arena for a long time, but I could never find the angle of what kind of story.

It seems like as soon as you have written something, it dictates a story. So I need to be careful.

I studied screenwriting at film school and was constantly learning how to construct three-act dramas.

I love to work with friends.

I'm a filmmaker; I want to make films. I don't want to sit in a hotel room waiting to make films, and I can control my thing in Denmark; I can make the film I want to make ... of course, I have to write a good script, all that, but if I do my job, it will happen.

Everyone in Denmark has at least two or three sailors in their family; sea travel is part of the DNA of our nation, and because of that, I'd always wanted to tell a story aboard a ship.

I never thought about writing the part where the pirates get on board the ship. I wasn't interested in that. I'm not an action director. I'm sure that other guys could do it a lot better. I couldn't put my heart into it.

The camera cannot leave the man, but the man can leave the camera. It's in the style of documentary where you make an agreement between a camera and a man and say, "I'm going to film you now."

After film school, I would write 8 hours a day on film and 8 hours a night on TV, and then sleep once and a while.

I don't want to write lines where characters tell me exactly how they feel; I want to see people talk about anything but their feelings, like they do in real life.

No doubt there is a Scandinavian wave. I guess everybody is just surfing their wave until it breaks and hoping it won't be too soon.

I've never been a soldier. In Denmark, at 18, as a male, you go in a draw, and if they pick you, you go and serve for a year. I didn't.

In real life, we're not walking around waiting for something to happen. We live our lives, and then suddenly we fall in love with somebody, and it's a big mess because you have a wife already, and it's going to destroy your life. And, at the same time, it's beautiful. Often, in films, it's not like that.

I have three sons, and the oldest wants to play pirates all the time. It has all these associations of living some kind of very free life. It's interesting for me as a filmmaker to show a whole different side of that.

Sometimes it seems like if you open up the door to reality and invite it in, it will just come flowing.

My mother - she's a good old classic Northern European socialist - she's totally wonderful, but she raised me up believing that rich people have stolen their money from poor people.