Cautionary tales were fantastic in the '70s.

Y Tu Mama Tambien' is one of the first unrated movies to be nominated for an Academy Award for Best Original Screenplay. But many video stores won't take a movie that's not rated, so I had to make the movie an R.

I produce the way I would love to be produced: In ways to create the best conditions to make your movie, but also to create a space in which the director calls the shots.

The two real leads in 'Children of Men' are Clive Owen and the social environment. You know, this same movie without the social environment maybe is just like a generic chase movie.

I've been very lucky in that the studios really respect me and they give me all my creative freedom. But nevertheless, they are inputs, they have opinions. It's the same thing for me as if you're in a shower and you're coming up with a tune, with a melody, but there are 70 people trying to sing their own melody at the same time. So you have to focus and concentrate, and not lose the track of your melody.

Historically, there is a fight between the sound designer and the composer. You see them in the mixing room and they're always fighting because the composer wants the music to be heard and the sound designer wants the sound to be heard.

I learned there's an amazing unexplored territory in terms of narrative. Before, I thought the unexplored territory was the form, the way you shoot a movie. Now, I'm learning about the beautiful marriage between form and narrative.