Most Italians who came to this country are very patriotic. There was this exciting possibility that if you worked real hard, and you loved something, you could become successful.

A director is the ringmaster of a circus that's inventing itself.

The only TV I would be interested in exploring would be live television. There's no substitute for a team of artists performing at their peak live when failure is possible. It's a high-wire act. That excites me.

I've been blessed with enough wealth that I can make a film myself up to a certain budget. So one way I thought I would reinvent myself was just to make these very small, personal films that I've financed myself.

A lot of the young people make beautiful films or big films or are able to finance them, but they can't get anyone to distribute them, they can't get anyone to see them, so they go to these thousands of film festivals. So I still believe that even though a young kid might be able to make a masterpiece or something that changes the direction of cinema, the issue of how to get it to people is still not solved.

Some critics are stimulating in that they make you realise how you could do better, and those are valued.

That's part of the requirement for me to be an artist is that you're trying to share your personal existence with others and trying to illuminate modern life, trying to understand life.