I think the film gives you a picture of a person. It gives you a complete picture.

Masculine ideals have become very confused in the modern world.

It always surprises me in films that killers seem so gleeful about killing people.

Jesse James is like a Leonard Cohen song, I wanted to do something that was like a pop song.

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.

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

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.