Thomas Vinterberg

“I shot a Metallica video in Hollywood, and there were, like, 100 people on set. There was even a guy there to put antiseptic gel on my hands. Amazing. If I asked for that on a Danish set, they'd probably kick me out of the country.”

“I found I am not an anarchistic form creator; I'm intuitive, and I'm trying to figure out a way to explore human fragility.”

“When you get a bad review, you hate the writer. It's very painful; whoever says the opposite lies. It's humiliating. Sometimes it comes from an honest place, but most times, it comes from a desire to trash someone.”

“I think Dogme was inspiring for quite a few peoples and sort of started a digital movement. Personally, I found it extremely uplifting and fantastic making Dogme movies, but I felt I completed it with 'The Celebration.' I think that was the end of the road on Dogme for me. It was as far as I could go.”

“My whole life has been a very communal experience; growing up in a house full of happy hippies, having dinner parties three days a week, and going to Christiania, I was constantly surrounded by people celebrating community. If you look at the films I've done, they all share that theme.”

“Denmark can be very small, provincial, and mediocre.”

“The success of 'The Celebration' was like a hand grenade exploding in my face. It suddenly gave me so many opportunities to explore things I had never done before.”