Gareth Edwards

“I like jumping to perspectives that aren't necessarily part of our characters, like suddenly you're in a window, looking from someone's house.”

“I take my 'Star Wars' quite seriously. There's humor in the movie, but as a fan I just wanted it to feel real.”

“I found there are a lot of advantages to being on a small budget and having a small crew. You get some very intimate performances and naturalistic cinematography.”

“I came through the ranks of the BBC documentary department. I was lucky working during this drama doc era, where they did reconstructions, basically like cheap drama made by the factual department.”

“I've always wanted to do it. I know a lot of people say that, but I really did want to make films, even when I was a tiny little kid.”

“I think some people get confused between development and pre-production. In pre-production, you know all your dates.You know when you're aiming to release the film. You've got your script. You've got everything sorted.”

“In a drama, the camera doesn't exist. In a documentary, it does.”

“I think the second you rule anything out is the second you end up doing them and then you look like an idiot online. Honestly, I feel like I got my dream, I got to make 'Star Wars'.”

“You have to strike a balance between imprinting the film with your voice, and trusting these amazing, talented people you've hired to do great work.”

“There's a side of me that wants to rebel, and as soon as you go down this path with a movie, and you're supposed to go right, I want to go left, just to see what it's like. I just want to do it,because the more I know you aren't supposed to do something, the more I want to do it.”

“All great films have stories attached to them of how horrific they were to get made.”

“One of the things you do, when you have a scene or whatever it is you're doing, I replay that scene in my head and pick different positions to watch it from in my head.”

“Yeah, I love Ewan McGregor, I think he's phenomenal.”

“I like grey, not black and white. Even the bad creatures, you want to give them a moment where you empathise with them. You realise that what they do isn't so evil.”

“Development is the first phase. People write a script, you get concept art. You get to a point where you get a green light, which is basically a production company saying they're going to put the money up to make the movie. Then you go into production.”

“Star Wars' is so rich and it seems crazy that everyone's, like, a white male guy. That's due to the 1970s and the fact that it was shot in Britain, but I was very lucky: I'm British, I grew up in England, and I got to see myself represented in a film.”

“It's such a marathon making a film - two-and-a-half years, at least - and every day, you do something that in any other lifetime would be one of the highlights of your life.”

“So your job as a director is to constantly try to stay at the steering wheel and pull it hard left or hard right. To try to give it a voice.”

“Being such a fan of 'Star Wars', the dream is to be able to add something to the equation and bring something to the table like Death Troopers and ships.”

“Peter Jackson was very good to me after I made my first film, he was really one of the best things that happened after that movie. I was invited to New Zealand to go hang out with him on 'The Hobbit', and so for two weeks I got to sit next to him and watch him direct, and it was the most amazing experience you could ever have.”