People make the assumption that you’re only interested in one thing based on the most recent thing you’ve done. But some directors can be pretty promiscuous about their tastes, and that’s how I want to challenge myself. – Edward Zwick
In my experience, the men of World War II, the vets of Vietnam, even guys coming back from Iraq, are loath to talk about their experiences. And the survivors of the Holocaust, particularly, are often very close-mouthed about their stories, even to their own children. – Edward Zwick
I like to reveal people with some of the niceties of social behavior stripped away and the moral, ethical, and political issues are revealed. – Edward Zwick
It seems that almost every time a valuable natural resource is discovered in the world-whether it be diamonds, rubber, gold, oil, whatever-often what results is a tragedy for the country in which they are found. Making matters worse, the resulting riches from these resources rarely benefit the people of the country from which they come. – Edward Zwick
The most interesting thing to me in chess are not the gambits. Or the moves. It’s the mental toughness. – Edward Zwick
You can spend an extraordinary amount of time raising independent money to do a movie for very little means. I’ve done it with ‘Pawn Sacrifice.’ – Edward Zwick
I think most Americans probably believe that our relationship with Japan began in 1941. In fact, obviously, it began in 1854 when Commodore Perry sailed into Yokohama harbor and threatened to burn it down unless they would open up to trade with us. The imperial impulse was first ours historically. – Edward Zwick
In my office, we were talking about the fact that they’d announced a remake of ‘A Star is Born,’ and I was bemoaning the idea of a fourth remake. And the young guys who work in my office were giving me blank looks, like, ‘What’s ‘A Star is Born?’ – Edward Zwick
Scale is not just something that a director wants so as to play with all the toys. Scale also lends verisimilitude, to put together a real world. – Edward Zwick
In the necessary memorialisation of the six million dead, there had been precious little attention paid to those who survived and how they survived. – Edward Zwick
You have to make choices always. It’s about the omission of something for the sake of another. – Edward Zwick
The Mitch Rapp novels are as thrilling and entertaining as they are relevant. I am delighted to be given the opportunity to translate them to the screen. – Edward Zwick
I guess television is so much on the word. It’s so much closer to playwriting – the scale is more just about the voices and the internal lives. Movies, it’s a very different canvas. – Edward Zwick
It’s one thing to plan and imagine what you want on a film, but when you actually arrive and survey the scene, there’s a moment of, ‘Oh my God, what was I thinking?’ – Edward Zwick
I had known a couple of people in college who went off the rails, who had significant bouts with mental illness. – Edward Zwick
I think it’s too easy often to find a villain out of the headlines and to then repeat that villainy again and again and again. You know, traditionally, America has always looked to scapegoat someone as the boogie man… there is a tradition in the most simplistic of action movies for there to be some horrible villain. – Edward Zwick
I think it’s easier to be cynical. I think the temptation, often, among writers is to write about anything other than real, true, deep feelings. – Edward Zwick
There is no reason why challenging themes and engaging stories have to be mutually exclusive – in fact, each can fuel the other. As a filmmaker, I want to entertain people first and foremost. If out of that comes a greater awareness and understanding of a time or a circumstance, then the hope is that change can happen. – Edward Zwick
Sometimes when we weep in the movies we weep for ourselves or for a life unlived. Or we even go to the movies because we want to resist the emotion that’s there in front of us. I think there is always a catharsis that I look for and that makes the movie experience worthwhile. – Edward Zwick
When ‘The Godfather’ comes on, any time of the day or night, I’m lost because I’m incapable of turning it off. – Edward Zwick
I’ve done all sorts of different kinds of action. We did a thing in ‘Blood Diamond,’ the attack on Freetown, where I carefully staged the action but did not show the camera operators what we were going to film – so it has the feel of documentary, trying to capture something, and that gave it a whole different feel. – Edward Zwick
