Andrew Niccol Quotations

We hear so much about weapons of mass destruction, ... But nine out of 10 war victims are killed by guns. It's the AK-47 that's a weapon of mass destruction.

I wouldn't make a very good arms dealer.

I can't go into a film if I don't think it has some sort of timelessness to it,

We live vicariously through celebrities. People used to say that celebrities are America's royalty; now I think celebrities are the world's royalty.

I make movies. I'm not in politics.

It's so hard to go to war at home. Go to war, go home, repeat. And that is the future of warfare. Forget about remote control drones, there's going to be remote control tanks.

I just don't analyze what I do, because I'm afraid I won't be able to do it anymore. I'm sort of superstitious. And that's why I've never looked back at any movie I've done.

Sometimes I'll be channel surfing or something, and I'll see a glimpse of something, and I'll quickly turn the sound down, and then what I look at, that's an interesting movie. But it's not me who made it. It's whoever that guy I was 10 years ago who made it.

I lived in England for a long time, and even the English didn't think me as one of theirs. In America I'm not really accepted. In New Zealand now, I don't think they even think of me as a New Zealander.

It's always interesting for me that people vote against their interests.

If we could switch off the aging gene we would. There's no technology that we've had that we haven't used. We are in the capital of staying young forever.

As soon as you made a decision that time is going to be currency, then it should be a reflection of what's happening today. And obviously, it is.

While we can't turn off the aging gene, we do go to a lot of extremes to stay young, I've noticed.

A schizophrenic war is not an easy thing to deal with.

My first obligation is to entertain but as far as science fiction goes, it's much easier to comment on today from another time because people then aren't focused on 'did you get the details right?' It's sort of a Trojan horse approach to ideas because it's wrapped in the future, it's wrapped in action, thriller.

I have so much to grapple with, I don't think too much about me. People call it the "dance of a thousand egos" when you make a movie. If only I had time to worry when I was making a movie about what the hell I was doing. It's sort of a marathon every day. And then at the end of it, you beg the producers for five more marathons.

Nine out of 10 war victims die from a gun.

We hear so much about weapons of mass destruction. But nine out of 10 war victims are killed by guns. It's the AK-47 that's a weapon of mass destruction.

You have two choices when someone changes your work. You can either wash your hands of it or embrace it.

You have two choices when someone changes your work, ... You can either wash your hands of it or embrace it. I embraced it. Peter and I are good friends.

Normally what you do is that you start with three tanks and you would use replication and you computer generate the other tanks, ... But here, they were so available I could use real tanks. It was cheaper to get real tanks in the Czech Republic than to make the fake ones that I would normally use computer generated imagery to do. In fact, we had to call NATO and warn them about that scene, because it looked like a weapons build-up in the Czech Republic.

Some people think 'Lord of War' is a political film, ... I think it's a truthful film, and the truth is political. The U.S. is by far the biggest exporter of arms in the world. It was true during the Clinton administration, and it's true during the Bush administration. It's bipartisan.

Some people think 'Lord of War' is a political film,

There's a vanity, ... Almost like Mafia guys who love 'The Godfather' and don't see it as an indictment against them. Some arms dealers will see this film and think it glorifies them. They'll just be questioning how authentic it is.

It made hard-core people harder core, ... Ultimately it had a good effect because it made such nonsense of so many views about guns.

It's so startling to know that the permanent members of the Security Council of the United Nations are the biggest arms dealers in the world, so they are really the

The U.S. is by far the biggest exporter of arms in the world. It was true during the Clinton administration, and it's true during the Bush administration. It's bipartisan.

In a way, my film is a how-to about becoming an arms dealer, ... During the making of it, I needed guns in the Czech Republic, and it was cheaper to use real guns than replicas. I bought 3,000 Kalashnikovs and then sold them back at a loss. I wouldn't make a very good arms dealer.

In a way, my film is a how-to about becoming an arms dealer,

I needed the devil to be charming, ... and there's no more charming a devil than Nic. Something about him makes an arms dealer likable. He was drawn to the material and took a big pay cut to do it.

I can't convince anyone it isn't CGI, ... Actually, I went to the Czech Republic and found a guy who owns, privately, 100 Russian T-72 tanks. It was no problem to lend them to me, but he needed them back to sell to Libya. I also had to inform NATO we were filming there. Someone in the Pentagon could have been looking at satellite images and noticed an arms buildup.