As a producer, I think one of the most important decisions you make is not necessarily the material you are working on but the production apparatus that you choose to develop the project with, and that determines what funding you go to, it determines many factors.

Try to produce your own films, avoid directing for hire.

Though I am still very vulnerable to audiences—and it happens all the time - where for some reason the energy doesn’t connect and, since the film is very personal, obviously I am made to feel very vulnerable by that.

People make decisions that may have one intent and yet are somehow perverted into something else. And sometimes it's because of design. Sometimes it's because of happenstance. But very often, it's mysterious to them.

I think ultimately if you have a very high expectation of your audience and you know exactly what it is you're trying to express through the medium of film, there will always be an audience for you.

I started in theater and I wanted to write plays, but I never really found an original voice as a playwright.

I think in the '80s, when I started making films, we were all suspicious of these technologies. We were all convinced they would filter out any emotion and sense of intimacy, and the films I made during that period reflected that. In fact, what has happened is the opposite. I think we're saturated with a degree of intimacy we would never have expected, and we're trying to sort through this idea of complete access to each other's lives on an ongoing basis. Our emotions aren't filtered out at all. They're actually accelerated.