I read reviews of critics I respect and feel I can learn something from. Right now there are a lot of bottom-feeder critics who just have access to a computer and don't necessarily have an academic or cinema background that I can detect, so I tend to ignore that and stay with the same top-tier critics that I've come to respect. I like reading a good review - it doesn't have to be favorable, but a well-thought-out one - because I very much appreciate the relationship of directors and critics.

The kindest thing a director can do is look with open eyes at everything.

I never wanted money worries to slow me down or make me take a job I didn't want.

I like to think of film-making not just as an act of personal self-aggrandisement but rather as an act of public service.

If you're not making epic, archetypal films on some level, I think you're wasting a great potential of cinema.

But it's just that the whole country is making generally lousy films these days and has been for quite a while. That's the big problem that we all have to think about.

I like action films, not exclusively, but I like Samurai films. I like Westerns. Not so much war pictures, but a few. I like kinetic cinema.