Biografia

Was offered the role of the Emperor in Il ritorno dello Jedi (1983), but had to decline because of post-production for his film Britannia Hospital (1982), which also featured Mark Hamill. Anderson expressed disappointment about this, telling a friend he probably would've enjoyed playing a "Prince of Evil" character.

He was a close friend of the actresses Rachel Roberts and Jill Bennett, both of whom committed suicide. He paid tribute to both in his documentary film, Is That All There Is? (1992).

Directed 3 actors to Oscar nominations: Richard Harris (Best Actor, Io sono un campione (1963)), Rachel Roberts (Best Actress, Io sono un campione (1963)), and Ann Sothern (Best Supporting Actress, Le balene d'agosto (1987)).

In the 1992 Sight & Sound poll, Lindsay Anderson listed the following as his top 10 favorite films: L'Âge d'or (1930) (Luis Buñuel), Evasione (1943) (Claude Autant-Lara), La guerra lampo dei Fratelli Marx (1933) (Leo McCarey), La terra (1930) (aka Earth; Aleksandr Dovzhenko), Listen to Britain (1942) (Humphrey Jennings), Incontriamoci a Saint Louis (1944) (Vincente Minnelli), The Singing Lesson (1967) (Lindsay Anderson), I sacrificati (1945) (John Ford), Viaggio a Tokyo (1953) (aka Tokyo Story; Yasujirô Ozu), Zero in condotta (1933) (aka Zero for Conduct; Jean Vigo).

He was, for a few weeks in late 1957, the film critic of the "New Statesman" magazine. During this time, he caused considerable controversy when he dismissed the year's biggest film, Il ponte sul fiume Kwai (1957), in just three sentences, devoting about 90% of his column to a laudatory review of a Polish film, Pokolenie (1955), which had not yet opened in London. David Lean, some twenty-five years later, refused to be introduced to Anderson because of this perceived slight.

I suppose I'm the boy who stood on the burning deck whence all about he had fled. The trouble is I don't know whether the boy was a hero or a bloody idiot.

[speaking in 1986] The modern perception of British cinema has nothing to do with British films--merely with the business of getting more money through the box office.

[speaking at age 61] In the morning I feel about 50; then, depending on how the day goes, I might get down to about 22. When I'm directing on stage, I'm 43 and 32 when making a film because I feel less in control. Acting? Oh, then I'm 24. And when I'm on my own, I feel about 17 and think the world is all before me.

To make a film is to create a world.

[on Samuel Goldwyn] There are lucky ones whose great hearts, shallow and commonplace as bedpans, beat in instinctive tune with the great heart of the public, who laugh as it likes to laugh, weep the sweet and easy tears as it likes to weep . . . Goldwyn is blessed with that divine confidence in the rightness (moral, aesthetic, commercial) of his own intuition--and that, I suppose, is the chief reason for his success.