These tics do bother me. Could I play a match without them? Yes, without some of them. I don't have to touch my nose or put my hair behind my ears before I serve. That's possible to stop. Not putting the bottles in front of my chair, I could go without that, too. But adjusting my underwear, that I could never get rid of. It's impossible.
What are you unwilling to optimise?
Question
What is the part of your job that people would be surprised is most of your job?
Craft & work
Question
What is an unusual habit or an absurd thing that you love?
Daily life
Question
What are you most proud of?
Identity & self
There were times when I thought I wanted to be a cartoonist. If I weren’t a film director, I think cartoons would have been a good alternative. But I never properly studied drawing, so my drawings are strange. But when I’m prepping films, it’s good preparation — and comforting to me — to do the storyboards. It’s fun, too, like drawing a whole comic.
Polygon, Polygon interview, October 2019, 14 October 2019 source ↗
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Rafael Nadal
Spanish professional tennis player, 2001–2024
Anthony Fauci
Physician and immunologist; director of the U.S. National Institute of Allergy and Infectious Diseases, 1984–2022
you have got to be totally honest and give advice and analysis that you’re asked to give that’s based on evidence. And if the analysis that you come to comes to a conclusion that a president might not like to hear that, you can’t be afraid of saying, “Mr. President, with all due respect, this is the way I think the situation is.”
Recorded
Academy of Achievement recorded interview, American Academy of Achievement, 22 August 2017
source ↗
Ricardo Semler
Chief executive and later chairman of Semco Partners, Brazil
So we'd say things like, let's agree that you're going to sell 57 widgets per week. If you sell them by Wednesday, please go to the beach. Don't create a problem for us, for manufacturing, for application, then we have to buy new companies, we have to buy our competitors, we have to do all kinds of things because you sold too many widgets. So go to the beach and start again on Monday.
Annie Proulx
Novelist and short-story writer
Proceed slowly and take care. […] To ensure that you proceed slowly, write by hand.
More from Bong Joon-ho
View profile →I’m a rather slow writer and I have to go to a coffee shop. I turn my back to the crowd in the cafe, so that everyone’s chatting and the noise of the place rises behind me, and then I just keep my head down and churn out my screenplay. I can’t write at home, because I get too lazy. I’ll just want to watch TV or fall asleep. But I’m not allowed to lie down and fall asleep in the cafe, right? So it kind of forces me to work.
They’re very quiet coffee shops, and there are some positions in which it’s easier to write. Somewhere there’s an outlet, and you can keep your back to people. I’ll write for about two hours and then get up and walk with my iPad to the next coffee shop, about 10 minutes away. When you walk, you get a little fresh air, and I’ve heard moving around is good for you while writing. When you write in an office or at home, you end up sleeping. You can’t sleep at a cafe since you can’t lie down. I think that’s good, and it’s become a habit. I wrote Parasite half in Seoul and half in Vancouver.
I wanted to create a very delicate and detailed film where you would feel like you could even smell every single character.
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