I like it when actors depart from the script to find their characters.

Film is a two dimensional thing - it goes up and down and left to right but if you put that music into that two dimensional medium, it became like a third, fourth, and fifth dimension, I really believe in that.

Whenever I'm making a feature film, I wish I were filming a documentary, because making feature films is so stressful. It happens every time.

I always listen to music when I write, I need a rhythm to write.

Once I start shooting I forget the scriptwriter in me. I like things flowing. If you have talented actors who bring their own ideas, it can be much better than what you have worked out.

I shot many scenes of Hamburg, albums full of postcard motifs, and I discarded almost all of them. I ride my bike through Hamburg every day. I go shopping here, I go to the doctor - and yet I no longer have the eye for telling stories about this damn city, even though I love it.

When an audience is laughing, that's opening their souls somehow, and when you have an audience with an open soul, it's much better to hit them with a knife.