Matt Reeves Quotes

#1. There's tremendous shame with being bullied. I think there's a level at which you think that there's a reason that you're being singled out, that you're being chosen.

Matt Reeves

#2. There's something about seeing a movie that you like, and being able to see the scenes that didn't make it, just as a window into the process of how choices are made and how a movie is made. To me, the idea of getting to have the scenes on the DVD is very exciting.

Matt Reeves

#3. I'm a first-time father, and it was amazing to me to learn that my son could actually use sign language before the spoken word. I could see this intelligence in his eyes before he could speak: how he could understand what was going on around him and was frustrated by that.

Matt Reeves

#4. 'Avatar' was incredible and totally groundbreaking, but it wasn't about utter realism. It had a great mythic fantasy to it, but the characters don't seem totally photo-real, as amazing as they are.

Matt Reeves

#5. When you think of the 'Exorcist,' you think of Linda Blair and pea soup and all this madness, but really if you look at the first half of that film, the stuff between her and Ellen Burstyn is so naturalistic and so real.

Matt Reeves

#6. It's funny, people don't think of 'Cloverfield' as being restrained because it's a handycam movie, but the only reason it's a handycam movie is because that was supposed to be the reality of the situation.

Matt Reeves

#7. I never would have guessed I would be making science fiction and horror films.

Matt Reeves

#8. Really interesting genre films, especially monster movies, evoke the fears of the times intentionally. Our starting point was 'Godzilla' - the original movie was released less than 10 years after Hiroshima, and it's a classic in Japan.

Matt Reeves

#9. My main interest in being a director, and the most important thing to me, is that world with the actors.

Matt Reeves

#10. In a weird way, if you look at all the 'Apes' movies, they all seem like different stories in the same universe. 'Beneath the Planet of the Apes' is definitely a continuation, but the other ones jump all around chronologically.

Matt Reeves

#11. It's crazy when you think about the 'Apes' franchise and how dark all of the endings are and how dark the movies are, and yet there's something very pleasurable about these movies. It really comes down to the potency of this idea, of seeing intelligent apes.

Matt Reeves

#12. It's the idea that anticipation is as scary as anything in a movie could be. People's imagination is the most effective tool in creating terror or dread.

Matt Reeves

#13. I was obsessed with movies, and it ended up being the tool with which I could make friends. Because I was too painfully shy in other circumstances, I would say, 'Hey, do you want to make a movie?' And that's how I made friends, and it was also my escape.

Matt Reeves

#14. I thought this was the most incredible opportunity. Because 'Planet Of The Apes,' aside from the fantasy element of talking apes, is such an amazing franchise, because under the surface of that genre, you're actually looking at human nature.

Matt Reeves

#15. I wanted to explore the possibility that this could have become 'Planet of the Humans and the Apes' instead of just 'Planet of the Apes,' so I wanted there to be this hope of connection as well as this inexorable pull towards what we know the series becomes.

Matt Reeves

#16. I discovered the fun of genre is ... you get to explore your fears, and you get to use the metaphor of the genre - whether it's a giant monster or a ... 12-year-old vampire. Whatever it is, you can sink something underneath the surface and make a personal film under the guise of great fun romp.

Matt Reeves

#17. I'm always looking for a reason to say no when I'm approached about a big studio tentpole because your fear is will you be consumed into the anonymous machine, and it will suck out any specificity and point of view that you might hope to express.

Matt Reeves