It's interesting, the worse things get in cities, the tougher that cities get, the more brutal the humor is. The tougher things people face, the darker the sense of humor gets and I find that incredibly optimistic.

Always changing genres, making very different films is a good idea. It's a way of making yourself feel vulnerable again, getting back to that innocence. As is working within a circumspect budget.

What you do is take the power [popularity] gives you - which is very temporary and minor but significant - and use it. The danger is that you use it on a vanity project that no one wants to watch.

If you have to be persuaded about something, you shouldn't do it.

I'm always after putting people in extreme circumstances. I'm always after not knowing what I'm doing in those extreme circumstances.

Actors are steeped in a world of agents and where the next job is coming from and what are their expenses and what is the hotel like. You want to take them out of that world and dump them into another world, so that when you meet them on the screen they don't seem like the guy who was in two others movies that year.

It's a nice way to put the focus back on this simple act... if someone creates you.