My job is going to be to direct the film - I'm going to do it. And that's where my job ends.

I don't need to push myself. I don't need to sharpen my own knife and slit my throat. I'm trying to chill it and find an equilibrium and a balance to my work.

I don't want to live anywhere where I'm breathing two million cars' fumes and paying a zillion dollars for the right to be totally hassled.

My grandfather lived to be 96 years old. He was born in a town outside of Salerno in Southern Italy. He came to New York when he was 20. He lived in the States from age 20 to 96, but he brought his culture with him, he brought his food with him, he brought his language with him, he never spoke a word of English.

I'm about my characters.

I was born in the Bronx, and then my father moved us to the country at an early age.

With 'New Rose Hotel,' I knew that I was getting paid a $100,000 fee to write, produce, and direct, and that's all I was going to get.