I remember, the first time I saw a [Andrei] Tarkovsky film, I was shocked by it. I didn't know what to do. I was fascinated, because suddenly I realized that film could have so many more layers to it than what I had imagined before. Then others, like Kurosawa and Fellini, were like a new discovery for me, another country.

Every time that I'm challenged with a film I think that I haven't learned anything, that every film is different and that every thing that I have learned is useless in this new adventure.

I didn't have a normal academic career. I never studied cinema. I learned from life.

When people laugh and applaud as characters are killing each other, and you never see the body that's lying there, or you never see the family that suffers, then it turns into a cool thing to do, like a videogame. Then, when you watch the news and see that 15 soldiers were killed, you start to see them as just numbers, material, information, images. We lose the real weight and real value of one simple human life.

I don't have anything against commercials, and I really like BMWs.

It's more enjoyable for me to know that life is finite. Knowing that, I would like to go to a party.

You hear about bombings in other countries, or numbers like "10,000 people died" - you hear that number and you think, "Well, I saw that yesterday in a film, and that didn't look so bad." Younger viewers, in particular, lose perspective on reality.