I remember as a kid being asked if I was Jewish or Irish. I said, like the glib little 15-year-old I was, ‘You can be both.’ Feeling very pleased with myself. Before they smacked me. – Lenny Abrahamson
People say that soundstage sets never quite look like reality. But actually, they can. They can be as real as you want as long as you pay attention to the kind of detail that is given for free in a real place. – Lenny Abrahamson
Frank’s really different from everything I’ve done. Maybe the one thing that’s the same, and the thing that I tend to do, is that I think I can create an intimacy with the characters, like a sense of presence with the people in the film, and that’s what I tried to do in ‘Room’ as well. – Lenny Abrahamson
I’m a big fan of American vaudeville and Hollywood silent film-era slapstick and the music halls full of ridiculous, eccentric characters. – Lenny Abrahamson
There’s so much pressure on kids to perform and to be the best they can be, and particularly with boys: boys who are the gifted ones get loaded with an awful lot of expectation and self-expectation, and that’s really hard for an 18 year old. – Lenny Abrahamson
Delusion is not good; better to be realistic and then surprise yourself if you’re lucky. – Lenny Abrahamson
As a filmmaker, I’ve sat on the other side, and I’ve watched when people I know have a film, and it’s doing really well, and people are talking about it in all the trades, and everybody is excited about it, and I’ve always thought, ‘Hmm, what would that be like?’ – Lenny Abrahamson
When we say ‘cinematic’, we tend to think John Ford and vistas and wide-open spaces. Or we think of kinetic camera movement or of a certain number of cinematic styles, like film noir. – Lenny Abrahamson
I started to make some commercials, which was a way for me to finally make a living at last. But it was only really a couple of films in that it looked like a viable career option. – Lenny Abrahamson
I’m a bit of a pessimist, oh yeah, and I always think the film I’m about to make is going to be a disaster. – Lenny Abrahamson
The style of direction in ‘Room,’ maybe a little bit like ‘Spotlight,’ tries to be hidden. – Lenny Abrahamson
I know that it’s axiomatic in the film industry that you’re not supposed to let the novelist develop their own story. Well, first of all, that’s kind of up to the novelist – because they don’t have to sell it. But also, I don’t believe it. It’s about trust. – Lenny Abrahamson
The most conventional romantic trope of all is that you put lovers under extreme pressure, where they have to make decisions that illuminate aspects of that bond. – Lenny Abrahamson
As far as the international industry is concerned, I don’t think people care at all where you are from – if the work interests them. – Lenny Abrahamson
I’m a bit of a late developer, generally. But the good thing about being a filmmaker is you still count as young all the way through your 40s. – Lenny Abrahamson
It’s something I’ve noticed with my two children – children frequently know and don’t know at the same time. They are aware of aspects of the world that are a little bit shadowy, and they choose not to engage with them. – Lenny Abrahamson
Having started in sciences, I then turned around and said, ‘Oh, I don’t want to do sciences. I want to do philosophy.’ And to their credit my parents said, ‘if that’s what you want to do, then go for it’. Then I got the scholarship to Stanford, which was very nice for the parents to talk to their friends about. – Lenny Abrahamson
I did go to cheder and was a bar mitzvah. We were members of an Orthodox synagogue, although we were not religious. My grandfather was Polish. He came to Ireland in the ’30s. – Lenny Abrahamson
In something like ‘Frank,’ which is a comedy, albeit a strange and emotional one, you can absolutely put in deleted scenes, and we did because they were just funny and great, but they weren’t necessary in the overall structure. – Lenny Abrahamson
I don’t think of myself as doing good works. It’s not, ‘Oh, I must give these poor people a voice.’ – Lenny Abrahamson
I’ve never worked in the U.K. television industry, but my guess it that it’s a tough world for directors. – Lenny Abrahamson
There’s a fashion for a macho style of filmmaking. How long can your longest take be? And shooting things in one shot. For me, if you can sort of disappear and make people feel that they are there, that involves massive amounts of work. – Lenny Abrahamson
I’ve been in rooms where people are discussing films that have yet to come out and saying delightedly, ‘Oh, I’ve heard it’s a disaster!’ The jealousy is unseemly. – Lenny Abrahamson
The process of shooting – of choosing shots – is intuitive for me, and I just feel my way towards what seems right. – Lenny Abrahamson
