Sir Roger Deakins has admitted he still feels nervous stepping onto film sets for the first time.
The English cinematographer is best known for working on films including The Shawshank Redemption, Fargo, A Beautiful Mind and 1917. He has also won two Oscars and five Baftas.
Despite having a nearly 50-year career behind him, Sir Roger says he still faces uncertainty each time he takes on a new project.
Speaking on BBC Radio 4’s Desert Island Discs with Lauren Laverne, he was asked by the host about his ongoing nervousness and how he still feels “terrified” on new sets.
“It’s new people and a new situation and until I get comfortable, I find it very difficult,” he said.
“On the other hand though – if you didn’t feel that stress and pressure, I don’t think you would be trying to do your best.
“That is what it is about. I want to do something that I feel like is part of me.”
He added: “I’ve always felt most confident when I’ve had my eye to the eyepiece of a camera. You are escaping reality in a way through the lens. There’s a certain distance I suppose.”
The cinematographer also explained how his method to operate cameras himself put him at odds with some directors, including Sir Ridley Scott.
He said: “I’ve had conversations with some directors and then in the end we’ve gone… ‘it’s not going to work, is it?’.
“He was somebody I spoke to a couple of times… he was operating at the time and shooting on zoom lenses… a lot of the things I don’t really like.”
During the episode, Sir Roger also spoke about the death of his mother from multiple sclerosis when he was nine years old.
“I don’t remember much… I remember when she was a little better. She went through stages. But I remember when I was young and we went to the beach and dad had to carry her back to the car in a carrier,” he said.
Calling her ill health throughout his childhood and her eventual death “traumatic”, he said that his mother spent the last few years of her life “in bed”.
“I didn’t deal with it very well,” he said of her death, adding he “wasn’t allowed” to attend her funeral.
Sir Roger went on to share that soon after his father remarried, his new wife “was there for about a week then disappeared” and he then threw himself into work.
Known as a “master of light”, Sir Roger has collaborated multiple times with directors such as the Coen brothers, Sam Mendes, Michael Radford, and Denis Villeneuve.
The cinematographer also worked on O Brother, Where Art Thou?, No Country For Old Men, True Grit, Skyfall, Sicario, and Blade Runner 2049.
He was made a CBE for his services to film in 2013, and was knighted in the 2021 New Year Honours.
The full Desert Island Discs episode can be listened to on BBC Sounds and BBC Radio 4 from Sunday at 10am.
