“I think for something to be beautiful, it has to have some darkness in it; otherwise, it’s just pretty. And pretty does not interest me at all.”
― Johan Renck
“The darkest aspects of imperialism are still very much prevalent in many cultures around the world; hundreds of years later, and we have a collective responsibility to encounter the deeds of our past.”
― Johan Renck
“If I feel the labor and the gruesome process, that helps me appreciate the art.”
― Johan Renck
“Being a police officer in America is a tough job.”
― Johan Renck
“I began my career as a recording artist, and eventually I started directing my own music videos.”
― Johan Renck
“I wish I had been born 20 years earlier, so I could have been in the movie business in the 1970s.”
― Johan Renck
“Whenever I’m making a film, it has to be timeless.”
― Johan Renck
“Building a cast is a card house. They lean on each other, provide for each other, and take from each other.”
― Johan Renck
“Art is never finished. It is only abandoned.”
― Johan Renck
“I like dark, hopeless, beautiful tragedies.”
― Johan Renck
“The only way to make something good is if you make it difficult for yourself on every conceivable level. You can’t cut corners; you can’t rest on your laurels.”
― Johan Renck
“Movies are made for people to pay and go see them.”
― Johan Renck
“I like being out on a limb and not know what we’re doing and why: just deal with it, the mayhem, you know?”
― Johan Renck
“They say don’t meet your heroes, but when it comes to Bowie, he truly is the most brilliant person I’ve ever met.”
― Johan Renck
“I have a huge love for music and always have.”
― Johan Renck
“In this artistic world, you might as well find a way to work with somebody that you have admiration for.”
― Johan Renck
“I hate comedy. I don’t even like comedy at all.”
― Johan Renck
“I don’t like fun stuff.”
― Johan Renck
“The first time I went behind the camera was in 1993. I felt, ‘This is my thing,’ and I knew that someday I’d make a feature.”
― Johan Renck
“In many ways, shooting my first feature was more difficult than I had thought it would be, but it was still the most rewarding experience I have ever had.”
― Johan Renck
“I grew up all over the world, including countries such as Sweden, Norway, U.S.A., and Kuwait.”
― Johan Renck
“I started out as musician and recording artist but quite soon started to do my own videos. One thing led to another, and soon I was making videos for a living.”
― Johan Renck
“I guess I found the life as a musician too counterproductive, as so much time was spent in tour buses & remote hotel rooms. As I am moderately hyperactive, this didn’t suit my temper.”
― Johan Renck
“With my years of promos & commercials, I actually have a massive amount of experience with regards to production. There pretty much isn’t one thing I haven’t tried at least once.”
― Johan Renck
“In the early 1990s, I was signed as a singer to the same label as Robyn. She was in her early teens, and I was in my twenties, so we didn’t hang out, but our paths crossed so many times that we slowly got to know each other and became friends.”
― Johan Renck
“In an ideal world, as a director, you usually wish you could do your own thing and not have to take anyone else’s point of view into account, but occasionally you work with someone like Robyn, who brings a new set of ideas to the table, and the whole ends up much greater than the sum of the parts.”
― Johan Renck
“All my close friends are non-conformist. To say ‘misfits’ sounds bad, but there is something positive about being a little on the outside – it gives you an interesting perspective on things – and I think that’s something Robyn and I share.”
― Johan Renck
“Working with friends isn’t easy – the nature of an artistic project means it’s about two strong visions colliding and a bit of mental wrestling.”
― Johan Renck
“Gothenburg is the Baltimore or Liverpool or Marseille of Sweden – plagued by the death of wharfs and other industries, and with complex segregation of the populace from southern Europe, which once brought in a labor force that suddenly found itself living in remote projects without jobs.”
― Johan Renck
“The interest in character-driven content over narrative-driven ditto is increasing; that’s why television steps in. Personally, I love it, since psychology and character, really, are my beacons.”
― Johan Renck
“I’ve been working in television for a long time, and I know all aspects of television.”
― Johan Renck
“I’m drawn to stuff with a certain darkness, and darkness with beauty within it.”
― Johan Renck
“As a Scandinavian, I like hopelessness and the weird austerity in the hopelessness of things.”
― Johan Renck
“I’m very much drawn to melancholy and those kinds of emotions.”
― Johan Renck
“Brits are very, very expressive, whereas the Soviet and Eastern European way is much more stern, stone-faced. Vladimir Putin-esque in some way.”
― Johan Renck
“I’m a huge Crowley fan, I’ve always been. I tried to make a movie on his life a few years ago, but we didn’t manage to put it together.”
― Johan Renck
“I love Crowley for being an audacious man at certain point in time. I think he’s greatly misunderstood. He was a good guy, but he was portrayed as an evil man, and he wasn’t.”
― Johan Renck
“I’ve never been one to talk analytically about a music video or whatever I do.”
― Johan Renck
“When you’re young, and you’re doing stuff, you’re making music, directing, making art, it’s all future directed. You want to change stuff onward. And when you get older – this applies to me – you think about the things you want to do and how it will be perceived by your children one day.”
― Johan Renck
“I’m Swedish. Sweden is known for its melancholia.”
― Johan Renck
“I’m drawn to the dark but not the nihilistic aspects, the relentless parts, of darkness.”
― Johan Renck
“All creation requires a scientific brain.”
― Johan Renck
“One of the things I love about my job is the cornucopia of different professions in one.”
― Johan Renck
“I grew up all over the world. My dad was a doctor but not a career-type doctor. He was very curious, so he took the whole family and moved to Miami in the ’70s, and we lived there for a couple of years. Then we continued like that and lived in various places around the world.”
― Johan Renck
“I’ve always been interested in photography. I remember when I was about 14, I spent an entire summer selling lottery tickets in some little booth so I could make enough money to buy an Olympus camera.”
― Johan Renck
“I was a huge fan of this band called Sparks. It was a pretty good inauguration to music, since their music is quite complex.”
― Johan Renck
“I wish I was really talented in music because then I would be doing it. I felt that I could write a decent song, but it was a big struggle.”
― Johan Renck
“I’ve never been a frustrated person because I learnt at a very young age that the frustration I had inside of me had to do with creativity and the ability to transform that into action. I realized very early my restlessness had to be channelled into things I could do.”
― Johan Renck
“I played in bands very very young. I painted; I did photography, all kinds of things.”
― Johan Renck
“I’m very impatient, and I’m very curious.”
― Johan Renck
“You’ll find Swedes – maybe not as much as the Finns – thriving in melancholy.”
― Johan Renck
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