I had never had a positive leading character – somebody that wasn’t an antihero, or who wasn’t more of a guy that you’re supposed to be on the side of. – Gus Van Sant
I think that in some cases, I’ve made films that have a sentimental quality, at least as part of the film. – Gus Van Sant
The area of teenage life is not necessarily rarefied; we’ve all gone through that period. It’s not as rarefied as a western or a space adventure or a gangster film, but it has its own dynamic. – Gus Van Sant
My family moved a lot as a kid. We started in Colorado, where I lived for five years. We moved to Chicago for two years, to San Francisco for one year, Connecticut for seven, Oregon for a couple years, and then I went to school. – Gus Van Sant
The reason I know about ‘Tomb Raider’ is from when I was researching ‘Elephant.’ It was 1999, and I was trying to research the Columbine-massacre kids, and they had played video games, and I, at the time, had never really seen one. It was a world I didn’t know. – Gus Van Sant
One of the things that is devastating is I realise I haven’t been living a different life than when I was, like, 12. I’m shocked at how reclusive I’ve been since then. I was unaware of it until recently. – Gus Van Sant
The media has gone through lots of things that make it a less foreign thing to have your lead character be gay. – Gus Van Sant
There is a common theme, though, in the stories I have told, which are usually associations of characters or families that are formed outside of a family circle. – Gus Van Sant
There’s a lot of films that have relatively rigid road maps because they have a script and others that are less rigid because they have less of a script, like ‘Elephant.’ The road map becomes more interpretive, maybe, than one with a detailed script. Editing-wise, they all have their problems. – Gus Van Sant
I’ve always been interested in how to present something that relates to our reality – which is not really… I don’t even know if documentary itself does as good a job. It has its own problems in trying to get at the reality of the situation. – Gus Van Sant
With ‘Good Will Hunting,’ Miramax made certain the recruited audience wasn’t expecting to laugh at Robin Williams like they normally do. From my limited experience, you can really blow test screenings by conducting them in the wrong way. – Gus Van Sant
I’ve told people who have just started to make a film that the one thing you might experience is this feeling that everybody is conspiring against you, because you’re not necessarily able to tell what’s real and what’s not. – Gus Van Sant
If you don’t have the story and the unfolding of the trajectory of the saga, it’s like getting in a car and not having any gas. – Gus Van Sant
If a movie isn’t released, it’s one thing, but if you know it will be, it’s nice to have closure and see it come out. – Gus Van Sant
Even when you’re making a movie about life, death is a presence, and I guess it’s part of my dramatic viewpoint. I’m not sure why exactly. Maybe I’m drawn to it as a story element. – Gus Van Sant
My family moved a lot as a kid. We started in Colorado, where I lived for five years. We moved to Chicago for two years, to San Francisco for one year, Connecticut for seven, Oregon for a couple years, and then I went to school. So I was always moving, I’m still always moving. – Gus Van Sant
Even when you’re making a movie about life, death is a presence, and I guess it’s part of my dramatic viewpoint. I’m not sure why exactly. – Gus Van Sant
If you put up posters around town for high-school kids, high-school kids will come. If you’re casting politicians, you can’t put up posters and have politicians come down. – Gus Van Sant
Free time keeps me going. It’s just something that’s always been a part of my life. I was originally a painter, and I made films sort of as an extension of that, and then I started to try to make dramatic films because the early films were experimental films. – Gus Van Sant
In high school, I read ‘Silas Marner’ and I was very attracted to this character – he was very rundown and he’d just stop, and things would happen around him. – Gus Van Sant
The things that inform student culture are created and controlled by the unseen culture, the sociological aspects of our climbing culture, our ‘me’ generation, our yuppie culture, our SUVs, or, you know, shopping culture, our war culture. – Gus Van Sant
There is a way that a younger person can accept the inevitable problem that they’re going to die, whereas somebody a little bit older might be overcome. – Gus Van Sant
I find it interesting, the different rules that apply to journalism and drama, even though journalism has become more and more about entertainment, and entertainment has become more and more about journalism. – Gus Van Sant
Death Valley is really wide-open – it’s bigger than Rhode Island – and it’s less a part of California than an ungoverned territory, so there’s lots of weird cops-and-robbers stuff going on. – Gus Van Sant
I have my ideas of what a good documentary is, but drama is a different animal because you’re arranging everything. – Gus Van Sant
