It's truly gratifying to see my films reach beyond a familiar public, to get a chance to move new audiences. It's nuts. It's extraordinary.

When things aren't working out, screenwriters have a tendency to say, "Go do other things," but you shouldn't do other things. You need to stay at your desk and continue to try to write. You need to insist on it.

For me, there was no great myth around the movies when I was a young child. My father was very simple about the whole thing. He did not consider cinema an art. Cinema was entertainment. Literature and music were art.

When things aren't working out, we have a tendency to say, 'Go do other things,' but you shouldn't do other things. You need to stay at your desk and continue to try to write. You need to insist on it.

I really believe the form of the film must be in the scenario; cinema is not just added value to the scripting. I believe in it as a totality.

Used properly, cinema is the coolest thing in the world.

I was the little French boy who grew up hearing people talk of De Gaulle and the Resistance. France against the Nazis! Then when that boy grew up, he began to uncover things. We began to legitimately ask the question, 'What exactly did our parents do during the Occupation?' We discovered it was not the story they were telling us.