Ridley Scott

“I think if I'm going to do a science fiction, I'm going to go down a new path that I want to do.”

“If studios don't get their money back, we don't have any movies. So it is important that films are successful, and I am fully supportive of that because I'm not just a director, I'm also not stupid. I've been in this business long enough and, to a certain extent, I'm a businessman; I know the importance of that.”

“I would make a film with a political point of view if I agreed with it, and even, perhaps, if I didn't.”

“I started late. I didn't make my first movie until I was 40.”

“We can't terraform yet, but we know it exists.”

“I've gradually realised that what I do best is universes. And I shouldn't be afraid of that.”

“Some people like to do everything always the same thing. That's another way: To do the same thing.”

“I always shoot my movies with score as certainly part of the dialogue. Music is dialogue. People don't think about it that way, but music is actually dialogue. And sometimes music is the final, finished, additional dialogue. Music can be one of the final characters in the film.”

“The story of 'Prometheus' is the idea that if you're given a gift from the gods, do not abuse it, and do not think you can compete.”

“I come out of TV. I come out of live television, BBC drama: that's where I started first as a designer, then a director. Then I went independent TV, then television advertising.”

“And I maintain good relationships with all the studios so I've never been bullied into any cut, frankly.”

“There has to be absolute trust between the tiger and its master, but its master must be the master - there must be no mistake about that.”

“Taking a comic strip character is very hard to write. Because comics are meant to work in one page, to work in frames with minimalistic dialogue. And a lot of it is left to the imagination of the reader. To do that in film, you've got to be a little more explanatory. And that requires a good screenplay and good dialogue.”

“For 'Prometheus,' I came back to a very simple question that haunted me that appears in the first 'Alien,' and no one answered in subsequent Alien films: who was the 'Space Jockey' - the big guy in the seat? If you really go into that, it becomes the basis for a pretty interesting story.”

“Scaring someone's the hardest thing to do, and that's why most of these scary movies are not scary. They're sick, but not scary. There's a lot of sickness out there, of people who then sit there and watch it, which I think is absolutely dismaying.”

“In my view, the only way to see a film remains the way the filmmaker intended: inside a large movie theater with great sound and pristine picture.”

“I'm a reader. I found out that, whether you're a studio head or a director, you must read your own material. You can't rely on readers.”

“The ego is there, but I'm learning to channel it.”

“Try writing a book, dude. That's difficult.”

“My career seems to be a career of non-specific subjects which are all over the place.”