There's a lot of romanticisation of the intuitive actor and method acting and all kinds of notions about getting inside a character and coming out from there.

The elegance of staying with a moment, without needing to stop and change all the lighting, made [the alternative] seem lazy and indulgent.

I tend to have a kind of tunnel vision when I'm looking at an individual piece.

I don't flatter myself - I'm not a scientist, I'm not a conservation expert.

I think there is a serious corruption in the idea sold through advertising that you can attain spiritual peace through lifestyle and the notion of building your happiness from the outside-in by acquiring things . . . which if you think about it, is the essence of advertising

Remarkably, there's no green screen in 'Leaves of Grass' movie. There is motion control. Technically, there were all sorts of challenges, but really the soul of it is Edward Norton talent. You write these characters when you write a movie, and all you can hope for or depend on is that your actors will elevate the material.

To me, Fight Club was a comedy. When [David] Fincher sent me the book and I read it, the first thing I asked him was, "This is a comedy, right?" he said, "Yeah, that's the whole point," and I said, "Okay, I'm in." I certainly wasn't imagining myself as a dramatic actor when I was running around in my underwear in that film.