I love animals. With animals you never know what you're getting. Everybody says don't mess with animals and little kids in movies but those are the funniest things because you can't be in control. I like to lose control as a director.

I really strongly feel that when you approach a drama, you have to approach it with energy, honesty, sincerity, and absolute commitment, or don't do it.

It's been an obsession of various genres, disciplines, and aspects and elements of movie-making. It's always been something that I've really aspired to, so doing something new and different, reinventing myself and working with new people is just the passport to the amazing world that is the movies.

Sometimes you'll have great actors who aren't comfortable with improvising. Which can get pretty frustrating. But every actor's coming from a different place and they have their own strengths and weaknesses and your job is to sell them as two people in the same world. Some of them have to have their hands held and some I just let loose entirely.

With Hollywood you're yesterday's news if you get a flop at the box office. So you might as well be braced to have something else to do that's interesting. Have something lined up to keep your stories fulfilled, and your ideas, because if you're just cranking out movies three times a year.

One of the things I wanted to do after three, prolonged movies is to do something that was really, kind-of knee-jerk decisions, and artistic instincts and strip down the process to more of a guttural level, and make something that wasn't so manicured and polished; wasn't quite so developed and supported, and just run wild with it and see what happens with it.

When you say "Holy Man", I immediately think of Eddie Murphy's finest hour. If it's anything comparable, I'm excited.