Darren Aronofsky Quotes

I couldn`t sleep one night and I was sitting in my office and I realized that I was an independent filmmaker.

There`s always been a lot of pressure and tension on the line. If Pi (1998) didn`t work out, I have no idea what my career would be. I don`t think I would have gotten another shot at it. If Requiem for a Dream (2000) didn`t work out, they would have called me a "one-hit wonder with a sophomore slump".

I was a TV junkie as a kid. I am the Sesame Street generation.

Casting ethnic characters is a very hard thing to do, but it`s important. It`s also interesting.

I`ve always wanted to introduce hip-hop filmmaking to film. There`s hip-hop art, dance, music, but there really isn`t hip-hop film. So I was trying to do that.

If you ask any person on this crew what they think of Hugh Jackman they`ll admit they`ve never seen anything like it. I`ll give him an emotional note and he`ll hit it every time.

At the end of Requiem all I wanted to do was get a DV camera and just do a small film. But then the hunger comes back.

When I go to movies I generally want to be taken to another world.

Comic books and graphic novels are a great medium. It`s incredibly underused.

As filmmakers, we can show where a person`s mind goes, as opposed to theater, which is more to sit back and watch it.

I`m Godless. I`ve had to make my God, and my God is narrative filmmaking.

I hope that Requiem is better than Pi. I hope that Pi is better than my student films, and I`m hoping that I`m getting better as I get older.

I only want to work with actors that really get it and make it work. I didn`t want it to be a star-driven thing anymore.

I try to live my life where I end up at a point where I have no regrets. So I try to choose the road that I have the most passion on because then you can never really blame yourself for making the wrong choices. You can always say you`re following your passion.

Animators have to live life 24 times as long as we do - every 24 frames of a second.

Turning 30 was when my parents both got cancer and were fighting it and beat it, but their mortality started to get to me. Everything wasn`t as hunky-dory like it was.

Now there is so much expertise and brainpower it`s hard to be at the cutting edge of what`s cool and not do something that`s totally geeky.

To me, watching a movie is like going to an amusement park. My worst fear is making a film that people don`t think is a good ride.

I`m not a comic book guy at all.