I started off as an actor thinking that I would be this Romeo, this dashing leading man. It turns out that I'm a character actor.

It's very hard to write music for a film because you're writing about somebody else's experience.

It's not your responsibility to have the bigger picture in mind. But, the downside is that then, a lot of times, you're disappointed by the movies that are made around you.

Géza Röhrig is just incredible because he's not an actor, he's a Hungarian poet. He also happens to be a brilliant actor. He's totally unusual, the way he talks and thinks and operates isn't in the same language as you're used to from actors who've been in a lot of things before. It brings this completely bizarre and fresh, wonderful way of approaching everything that I love being around. Not where I'm, as a producer, having to interact with him as an artist, but as somebody who can stand back and admire what he's bringing to this thing that I've nurtured to create a stage for him.

The research period of a film is the most exciting part of the process, and filming is sometimes a letdown because when you're dealing with biopic material, the real thing is always much more intricate than the story told in the film.

I love costumes. I love getting dressed up because it really helps my imagination make the leap to believe that I am who I say I am.

I don't separate Robert DeNiro's comedy from the serious stuff. The one thing I realize working with him in all of his work, is that he doesn't do anything unless something happens to him in scenes - unless something happens to make him react. He never came in with a set idea of how he was going to do it, he never came in with guns blazing. He would just show up and wait to see what happened.