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.

I'm not a very efficient filmmaker. There's a lot of guys, filmmakers like the Coen Brothers who shoot a whole movie and maybe don't use 12 setups. I'm in awe of people like that; I'm just not that guy.

I like violence to be upsetting. The only reason to do it subtley is if doing it subtley makes it more effective somehow.

I always feel that crime films are about capitalism.

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.