“We have to remind ourselves that what we take for granted now is hard-won.”
― Morten Tyldum
“As a filmmaker, I don’t want to limit myself to one kind of movie.”
― Morten Tyldum
“I hope I can be a filmmaker where every movie will be different, and not make one type of movie. I’m always looking for a character that interests me.”
― Morten Tyldum
“To do a movie about someone who actually lived gives you two responsibilities. You have to try to be accurate to the facts of what he did and what he was like as a character. Then, at the same time, you have a responsibility to make a movie that entertains and can get an audience.”
― Morten Tyldum
“To me, it’s mind-boggling to think that homosexuality was forbidden up until 1967.”
― Morten Tyldum
“You never know where your next movie is going to come from. You just have to fall in love with something because it’s going to be taking up every moment of spare time in your life for about two years. You’re going to be dreaming about it and thinking about it and becoming obsessed with it.”
― Morten Tyldum
“I’m such a romantic at heart.”
― Morten Tyldum
“I’m a sci-fi fan, but a lot of the sci-fi you’re getting is the same. It’s very stereotypical.”
― Morten Tyldum
“I think that the test for taking on a project is to try and list all the reasons not to do it. When you find yourself running out of reasons, and you still have to do it, it’s the right thing to do.”
― Morten Tyldum
“I’m from Norway, but I always felt like I’d grown up with British culture. We had everything from the BBC on our TV, so British drama seems very close to home.”
― Morten Tyldum
“’Headhunters’ was a breakthrough film for me, internationally, and I got offered a lot of scripts from Hollywood – a lot of heightened hero movies.”
― Morten Tyldum
“I came to Hollywood and felt myself an outsider, and I was sent all these action thrillers and superhero scripts.”
― Morten Tyldum
“You never have any idea where your movie’s going to go when you’re shooting – you’re in this little bubble. Everything you care about is getting the next step right: getting the script right, finding the right actors, shooting it. Then you spend half a year in a dark room editing your film, and you don’t talk to anybody.”
― Morten Tyldum
“Our film society back home is so different from here. Making a movie is universal. Directing a movie is universal; it’s a universal language. It’s just figuring things out and understanding the codes and how the system of Hollywood compares to that of Norway. We don’t even have agents. There’s no studio system, no managers.”
― Morten Tyldum
“I love history, and I thought I knew history well, but I was shocked by how little I knew about it.”
― Morten Tyldum
“You never have any idea where your movie’s going to go when you’re shooting – you’re in this little bubble.”
― Morten Tyldum
“Everything you care about is getting the next step right: getting the script right, finding the right actors, shooting it. Then you spend half a year in a dark room editing your film, and you don’t talk to anybody.”
― Morten Tyldum
“I always felt Harrison Ford looked like he’s about to shoot himself when he’s carrying his own gun. He always looked afraid; he’s not just this tough guy, you know?”
― Morten Tyldum
“Turing was uncompromisingly honest. As soon as he didn’t think you were interesting or smart, he’d just turn around and walk away, even if you were in the middle of a sentence.”
― Morten Tyldum
“This is a man who was 23 years old when he theorized the idea of creating a programmable machine, and in that way, Turing foresaw computers and artificial intelligence. These were revolutionary ideas at that time.”
― Morten Tyldum
“You do not move forward by following convention. You celebrate those who are different, who are not burdened by ‘normality.’”
― Morten Tyldum
“Turing was fearless. He’s extremely direct, which can be seen as socially awkward, and that becomes both his big obstacle but also, in many ways, his strength.”
― Morten Tyldum
“For film fans to support ‘The Imitation Game’ means so much to me, the entire cast and film-making team.”
― Morten Tyldum
“I like movies where you can’t just put them all in one box.”
― Morten Tyldum
“When you go to the movies, you expect the movie to create a world that you can immerse yourself in, that you can step into. Sci-fi is a beautiful way of doing that.”
― Morten Tyldum
“We had everything from the BBC on our TV, so British drama seems very close to home.”
― Morten Tyldum
“I’m from Norway, but I always felt like I’d grown up with British culture.”
― Morten Tyldum
“Sometimes you read something, and you have to read more and more about the background.”
― Morten Tyldum
“I don’t see myself directing the same movie twice.”
― Morten Tyldum
“Seeing the first edit is the worst.”
― Morten Tyldum
“I don’t know if it’s a sadistic side or whatever, but you take characters and put them in really awful situations and make them go through that. And it’s very satisfying as a director to explore that, to tell those stories and to explore those themes, because it is so human.”
― Morten Tyldum
“I don’t think the biggest crime is to not sympathize with people. I think the biggest crime is to not be interested.”
― Morten Tyldum
“We’re very skeptical of people who are too perfect.”
― Morten Tyldum
“We like flawed people.”
― Morten Tyldum
“The more shaded, flawed characters that are struggling, I think there’s something very relatable about that.”
― Morten Tyldum
“I love when people say ‘Imitation Game’ is such a crowd pleaser.”
― Morten Tyldum
“I always wanted to do a sci-fi movie, but most sci-fi scripts are either about saving the planet or fighting aliens.”
― Morten Tyldum
“Turing was very strong and driven and, at the same, so awkward and fragile.”
― Morten Tyldum
“It’s a blessing to find a project you feel you have to make or you’ll die.”
― Morten Tyldum
“I wanted to make a movie that celebrates the outsider, the one who is different, the one who is not normal – and show how important that is.”
― Morten Tyldum
“It’s not every actor that can play a genius.”
― Morten Tyldum
“If I did the structure and had this thing about a straight character, I would never have a sex scene to prove that he’s heterosexual. If I have a gay character in a movie, I need to have a sex scene in it – just to prove that he’s gay?”
― Morten Tyldum
“I was shocked that I knew so little about Alan Turing. Then I started to read about him, and I got a little obsessed.”
― Morten Tyldum
“I’m very tired, but this is what every filmmaker dreams about: that their $15 million, under-the-radar film is now being seen by so many people.”
― Morten Tyldum
“Trying to explain Turing’s work in encryption and decryption? It’s complicated.”
― Morten Tyldum
“I thought I knew who Alan Turing was. I’ve always loved history, and I was actually shocked by how little I actually knew. I was amazed this wasn’t common knowledge. Why wasn’t he on the front covers of my history books? He’s one of the great thinkers of the last century, and he was sort of pushed into the shadows.”
― Morten Tyldum
“To me, Turing is as much of a philosopher as he is a mathematician because his ideas deal with what it means to think.”
― Morten Tyldum
“Just because someone or something thinks differently than you do, it doesn’t mean that it’s not thinking.”
― Morten Tyldum
“World War II was the last ‘pure’ war. It was purely heroic. There was someone who tried to conquer the world, who tried to exterminate people.”
― Morten Tyldum
“If you want the human psyche, how we deal with humans in these situations, WWII is a very tangled place to go.”
― Morten Tyldum
“’The Imitation Game’ is a very British film.”
― Morten Tyldum
“I’m a Coen Brothers fan – especially their early work.”
― Morten Tyldum
“When you watch a Hitchcock movie, you feel like learning back because there’s a master in control.”
― Morten Tyldum
“I love Fincher, as he has a great atmosphere and intensity. Also, I grew up watching Hitchcock movies, and there was something elegant in the way he plays with you and plays with the character and tricks you.”
― Morten Tyldum
“The most serious problem doing biography is the matter of time because you have to shape events into a narrative of two hours; you have to create a dramatic arc. That can be a challenge.”
― Morten Tyldum
“I don’t think you pick your projects; you just fall in love with it, and it just becomes something you have to do.”
― Morten Tyldum
“You first do the assembly cut, which is basically the cut that mirrors the script. You’ve got to start with that.”
― Morten Tyldum
“What you want, as a filmmaker, is to be obsessed with and fall in love with the material.”
― Morten Tyldum
“Love is not selfish. Love is something else.”
― Morten Tyldum
“As a director, one of my biggest jobs is trying to see what actually works for the actor.”
― Morten Tyldum
“Thank God sci-fi has moved away from spaceships fighting aliens! Now it’s a place where you can explore contemporary issues or emotional feelings. You can put it all in a different setting.”
― Morten Tyldum
“Sci-fi is about ‘what if this happened,’ and ‘what would you do.’ You can play around with social dilemmas, or look at society or, in my case, relationships, in a very different way.”
― Morten Tyldum
“I didn’t know anybody who was a filmmaker – there was no film industry where I grew up. I never knew what a director really did until I was in high school and I started reading up about it. I’ve always loved films, and I always felt like a storyteller.”
― Morten Tyldum
“Sometimes I think I don’t do anything but make, watch, and talk about films.”
― Morten Tyldum
“I left Norway after high school and moved to Manhattan and went to film school in Manhattan. That’s when I really found out that this was my calling and what I wanted to do.”
― Morten Tyldum
“Making a movie is universal. Directing a movie is universal; it’s a universal language.”
― Morten Tyldum
“It’s great to try another format and be part of telling a story over ten episodes.”
― Morten Tyldum
“You find a story – or more importantly, you find some characters – that you want to be around as a filmmaker. The style and how we’re going to shoot it and how we’re going to design it and how it’s all going to feel and look depends on that story. They tell me how I should shoot it.”
― Morten Tyldum
“Bob Dylan is someone that – I don’t care how long into the future it is – somebody will still play Bob Dylan. He will always survive.”
― Morten Tyldum
“In every Kubrick movie, there is so much great thought put into the surroundings. It’s almost like the sets are huge characters in the movie at all times.”
― Morten Tyldum
“To me, Alan Turing was a mystery – it was sort of like something I needed to unravel. And he was also obsessed with puzzles. So I wanted to make the movie like a mystery, like a puzzle that you’re piecing together.”
― Morten Tyldum
“As a filmmaker, I don’t want to limit myself to one kind of movie. After ‘Headhunters,’ I went to Hollywood and read a lot of scripts: lots of action thrillers and heist movies, and superhero films.”
― Morten Tyldum
“I love using drama and humour.”
― Morten Tyldum
“I love William Gibson.”
― Morten Tyldum
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