People who are difficult, whether they're getting their $10 million or $10,000, are going to be difficult no matter what. It really just depends on the person.

I'm very fortunate, and the movies that I've made, even from the very beginning, have been very eclectic. The thing for me is: Am I emotionally engaged in the idea? Is there something special about it? Does it capture my imagination? So everything that I do is simply something that turns me on. And I have the good fortune to be able to make bigger movies and television that ostensibly pay for the other ones. I don't mean literally finance the movies. But they allow me to work on things for very little pay. I do these things because I love them.

There seems to be something in the zeitgeist, and maybe it's a function of - I'm no analyst, nor am I a psychologist - when you look at things and say, What if I could go back and change things? I think we live in a world right now where people are asking those questions a lot. What if we could go back and change what we did? How would we change the way we handled things in the Middle East, and how would we change things with the banking industry, and how would we change economic and educational issues?

If you really want to break it down, on a small movie everybody knows that they're there for artistic reasons to do something special to make something amazing, and they're not going to get their normal hotel and they're not going to get their trailer, but they're willing to forgo that - and of course the salary - because they want to do something really special. On a big movie, most people are getting paid a lot of money, and so they're there to do the work.

People who are difficult, whether they're getting their $10 million or $10,000, are going to be difficult no matter what. It really just depends on the person.

The idea in collaborative bargaining is to negotiate without making concessions to each other, by looking for joint-gain options instead.

Most of the actors that I've had the pleasure to work with are very easy to get along with. And whether they're getting paid or not getting paid doesn't necessarily make a difference. Most people are easy to work with and easy to get along with, but we mostly hear about the assholes who are really a pain in the ass, and we've all had our share of working with them.