It's very hard for a studio to take a chance on a piece of original material. They used to have the fall-back of DVD sales. They had ways in which they could safely make an investment in a piece of original material, and those opportunities aren't necessarily there anymore.

It's no secret that my process is a little bit loose and can be a little bit infuriating to a studio if they don't know what they're signing up for.

I realize I am contradictory: I have an independent filmmaker's sensibility and a Hollywood director's short-attention span.

It's almost a work-shopping process to create the characters with the actors.

To be a lone filmmaker thousands of miles from home with nobody believing in me, that seems romantic.

You can find truly original pieces of writing, but they're original because you go, "Who would have even have thought of that?," or, "Why would anyone ever want to go see that?"

When I was shooting 'The Bourne Identity,' I had a mantra: 'How come you never see James Bond pay a phone bill?' It sounds trite, but it became the foundation of that franchise.