As a filmmaker, it's important to sit there and feel embarrassed. If you feel embarrassed by something, you cut it.

The crime film is the most honest American film.

I'm sure part of the fascination with the film is voyeuristic - that we go to see somebody who's been struck by lightning.

It's obviously a lot more of a political undertaking making a movie in Hollywood and it's a business there. In Australia, they don't expect films to make money; whereas in America they're counting on it.

It's a wonderful thing to go to work and have no idea what you're going to do.

I imagine that in a closed, hermetic society like the mob, where everybody knows each other, it must be really, really unpleasant to have to kill people. It's the sort of thing you really want to avoid.

I'm from the "if it ain't broke, don't fix it" school of screenwriting. I just like to preserve what works and ignore what doesn't work.