Quotations

«I guess, coming from England ... Dustin Hoffman and Gene Hackman, they're your country's big stars, and in England, they're even more so. I mean, they star on the American screen. These are huge American icons. I think that what John was saying about Dustin, he works harder than anyone that I've ever seen. He cares so deeply about what he's doing. His passion is tremendous and he still get scared. I still get scared. I was terrified working with these guys and he told me, 'I still get scared myself,' and I think that's what keeps an actor good, and Gene has this incredible power. You can sense that he's doing nothing, it's so simple what he's doing, and he has this thing going on inside him. It's a smoldering power, and he comes in and does his job, he's very chivalrous, very polite. Then John, I've been a massive fan of John since I can remember. It was a genuine honor to work with him. I feel like I was better when I got to work with him. He has this unbelievable charm and a lightness of touch which is so brilliant for his character on this jury. No one suspects that he's up to anything. He sort of makes everything feel light and charming, but he has this other side as his character. I think that he has a huge intelligence, a profound intelligence. He's just an unbelievable combination, that wit and charm.»

«It's very sweet that so many people have come here.»

«We were in a real place, and what happened happened.»

«I had to find a dress that would glow with me ? that was the main challenge.»

«Most of the time we do nothing, myself included, ... I think the lesson I learned from [Tessa] is that a lot of drops make up an ocean. If people would stand up and say what they believe in maybe we can make a difference. Helping one person is better than nothing. Just do something.»

«I think Tessa feels maternal to all the people of Africa. She feels they are all her family,»

«It's very difficult to find really good writing for women, ... There's usually only one adjective for women in a script: 'strong' or 'sexy.' [Tessa] is a woman of many things: flawed, very real, goes too far.»

«Where the kids keep coming up to us and greeting us, that wasn't in the script, ... That was just a few of us -- Fernando, an assistant and a cameraman -- walking around with a hand-held camera. That's more documentary and reportage than feature filmmaking.»

«It was a life-changing experience for every one of us who went, ... I had to make myself at home there, because Tessa felt most at home there. We shot in places like London, as well, which were closer to my experience. But the film benefits most from the fact that Fernando, because of his previous work, was plainly more at home in the slums than those alien houses of government, the fancy sets. That shows up on the screen, and it makes the film work.»

«These things that you see are not sets. It's the real shantytown, the real maternity hospital, the real Africa, ... The Mummy.»