I didn't see an abstract painting until I was 18, when I went to Vincent Price's house and saw Richard Niebencorn, Wolff, Jackson Pollack. He had an amazing collection. I didn't know people painted abstractly, I thought I was just doing something wholeheartedly.

I was reading a lot of Thomas Jefferson at the time, and Jefferson said that every 20 years, if one party has stayed in power, it's your obligation as an American to vote the other party in.

I never really made any money and it certainly cost me more to take photographs than I got for them.

I was very shy, and it was a lot easier for me to communicate if I had a camera between me and other people.

To make a documentary is one thing, to make a feature film is quite another.

I was a Shakespearean actor, I had preconceived ideas, line readings - everything was a gesture, everything was conscious.

I was always involved in art and when I went under contract at Warner Bros. at 18, it afforded me the possibility of never having to stop painting, never having to stop taking photographs and so on, and to actually live a cultural life.