Julie Taymor Quotes

One of the reasons I love to jump back and forth between mediums is that film does allow me to be more literal. I can go to the real place. I can go to the Coliseum, and I don't have to fake it.

When I was thinking about The Lion King, I said, we have to do what theater does best. What theater does best is to be abstract and not to do literal reality.

I think we all see the world from our own little unique bubble.

I really do believe that if you don't challenge yourself and risk failing, that it's not interesting.

There is incredible power in the arts to inspire and influence.

When you break into song, it's not about dialogue, it's not about how you would speak in a naturalistic sense-it's about expressing your inner torment or your inner joy.

Theater is far superior to film in poetry, in abstract poetry.

What I don't have in theater is editing.

An artist is an entertainer, number one - a storyteller who takes people someplace, who gives them what they didn't know they wanted.

Limitations force you to find the essence of what you want to say, which is one of the most important things to know for an artist.

I lived in Indonesia for four years and I understand trance and magic and where it comes from.

I want to experience a performance on all levels - I want goose bumps and I want to leave the movie or play arguing about something that's unresolved.

Some people become dullards, but as children we are all creative. It's in the programming, the socialization, that we lose our sense of play.

I'm not going to spend two years on a film or four years on an opera if I don't feel like I can put my own self into it. That doesn't mean it has to be about myself.

I use cinematic things in a theatrical way on stage, and in film I use theatrical techniques in a cinematic way.

Some of my ideas for film or theater come to me in dreams. I'm also very creative when I'm talking to others. I believe in collaboration.

My God, it transformed me. My life changed.

What I don't know for sure is what's next for me - and I don't mind that. I know for sure that whatever happens will be interesting and will challenge and excite me.

It's people who are repressed and cannot express their fears that are dangerous.

That's my policy - to be positive, to just hope that something will happen. If you start with all your fears, your receptivity is for the negative.

In America, the word art has become like the word adultery. It's this big scarlet letter. When you say you're an artist, people are like, "Ugh."

I call myself a playmaker sometimes - but that's just a word. I don't feel like I have to have a title or a job description.

In a way, artists are shamans, facilitators who take what's there, channel it through themselves, then put it out there for people to appreciate.

Creativity is a gift, but if you don't know how to use it you might not even know it's there. There's a lot of creativity in the air, but it's meaningless if you're not open to receiving it.

People will justify whatever for a good cause.

I've had male executives say that my lead character was unlikable because she slept with a lot of guys.

I believe that if you really have a strong idea, you can say, "What do you think? Let's see how my idea plays off yours."

A performance can have amazing visuals and special effects, but it has to tell a good story, even if that story isn't original.

I am, to be quite honest, sick of hero stories.

You program music with an image and then people are desensitized.

And I just think that to introduce an unknown Shakespeare is thrilling, too - not to do Hamlet or Romeo and Juliet, to do the richer Shakespeare. People will come to this and not know the story.

I think that both musicals and opera have a capacity to get to an inner emotional landscape.

I have never had a problem with people not being able to understand the words and the meanings in Titus.

I love directing Shakespeare on film. It's fantastic that the actors would do exactly the same thing and be true to their part.

Directing is much more psychological-it's a lot like being a general. And you have to be organized. While you're making a film, you have between two and 500 people asking you a billion questions.

Children have an easier ability to tap into the surreal than adults do, in a funny kind of way.

What I adore is the juxtaposition of high tech and low tech. It's sort of like I love the sacred and the profane. I love to put these extremes in the same hopper.

I am creative in my living space - the designer in me helps that out.

When I was growing up, there were a lot more arts in the public schools. Politically, America has screwed up on that.

I'm a firm believer in the idea that theater excels over film and TV in its ability to let people play with poetry.

The idea that all violence in movies is okay simply because it happens is bull. Directors and writers have a responsibility.

You just have to throw fear out the window. If there's anything that's going to hold you back, it's fear.

People have become so literal because they're used to reality-based television.

We're really having a problem right now in our culture. I haven't seen one movie lately in which the story and visuals have been equally good.

Everything amounts to nothing if you don't love someone or something.

You don't have to patronize your audience, and you can mix art and commerce in a profound way. You can simultaneously play to the sophisticated, 60-year-old theatergoers and to 4-year-olds.

You have to stop yourself from even thinking about failing.