Ken Adam Quotes

To be successful, you really have to put your ego in the background and try to be diplomatic to achieve what you want to achieve.

– Ken Adam

I have never been sorry to see my sets being struck, provided they are well photographed. They’re not works of art but part of making a film.

– Ken Adam

It takes courage to stay young, to make your enthusiasms work for you. Don’t let anyone drag you down.

– Ken Adam

With Kubrick and most film directors, they are in complete control, but one can influence them.

– Ken Adam

I always wanted to design for films.

– Ken Adam

What I felt at that time – we’re talking about ’61 – was that I couldn’t remember seeing a film that reflected the age we were living in.

– Ken Adam

One thing that I think works in ‘Casablanca’ and which I’ve lectured a lot about – in terms of what I’ve been trying to achieve as a designer – is the film’s creation of its own form of reality.

– Ken Adam

I’m an incurable romantic, and Casablanca’s one of the most romantic pictures I’ve ever seen – the combination of Bogart and Bergman is just magical.

– Ken Adam

My mother and father were interested in the arts.

– Ken Adam

Remember, the early ’60s in London was something – which must have been like Berlin in the ’30s when the arts flourished. You didn’t have the differences in class, and so on.

– Ken Adam

A studio allows me more freedom. You can create your own sort of reality which is actually more exciting than shooting on location. You can conjure up a complete atmosphere of escapism for the public.

– Ken Adam

The cinema is there to heighten the imagination; I have always tried to make sure it does so.

– Ken Adam

The Berlin of the ’20s formed the foundation of my future education… the Berlin of the UFA studios, of Fritz Lang, Lubitsch and Erich Pommer. The Berlin of the architects Gropius, Mendelsohn and Mies van der Rohe. The Berlin of the painters Max Libermann, Grosz, Otto Dix, Klee and Kandinsky.

– Ken Adam

My house is not James Bondish at all. Sorry.

– Ken Adam