Nicolas Winding Refn

For me, the greatest pleasure is when you make something, and everyone argues about it.

Hollywood is Hollywood. It'll never change, although it does go through its own transformations. I think that there's this obsessiveness with making money, which has gotten out of proportion.

Beauty is like a new class system. The world is so obsessed with beauty; it has been for the last 2,000 years. It's the one stock that's never gone down, the one stock that's never gone out of fashion.

If an actor or actress is recognizable, that changes our perception of them. Sometimes you can play against type, or you can just repeat what they've already done. It can be an obstacle; it's a very fine line.

I find beauty very frightening because it's such an all consuming subject in our society.

To me, the darkest film ever made and the film, to me, that's the darkest picture in the human humanity's soul is 'Pretty Woman.'

I was very affected as a foreigner coming from Copenhagen, which is the safest, most liberal town in the entire galaxy. I was like an alien stranded in a strange land for the first time in the U.S.

I think the Internet is the greatest invention since women.

I think you have to be so indulgent in creativity in that, if you're happy, it's successful. If it's then financially successful, which is different parameters, then you're also happy.

I believe that the constant possibility of failure or possibility of decision-making feeds your creativity.

Creativity is about taking what is the norm and expanding it and continuing to expand it and expand it and expand it and expand it.

The most creative phase of a film is in shooting, because structure is the defining element of that phase.