Let's take the work seriously, and not ourselves seriously.

Conflict is the basis of drama. I guess that goes back as long as time has existed as far as mankind is concerned, dating back to the Greek tragedies or the Old Testament. And violence is a form of conflict, so whether that's catharsis or whether that has some socially damaging effect on audiences - I suppose that would just depend.

I don't watch a lot of films. I'm usually involved in making them.

I'm in the saddle every day playing a screwball. And then somebody comes along and says, "How would you like to go to Italy and Spain and do an Italian/Spanish/German co-production with an Italian director who's only directed one movie?" It wasn't like I was going there to be with Federico Fellini. But something was there, and I thought, Well, I loved this story when it was told by Akira Kurosawa; maybe this is a good idea. That's an instinctive moment. A Fistful of Dollars was made.

I've never been on a movie where they play five-dollar Friday. I must not be very observant.

I'm not really conservative. I'm conservative on certain things. I believe in less government. I believe in fiscal responsibility and all those things that maybe Republicans used to believe in but don't any more.

To me cinema can be a much more friendly world if there's a lot of things to choose from.