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.

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.

When you're a kid and your father is an engineer, he goes to the office. I saw my father get up and go to the office in the house and write. But I don't see any similarities.

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.

Cool? Am I cool? I don't know, but I hope my characters are cool, in the sense of iconic. That's my job, at its very essence.

What interests me about genre is that the public connects immediately with it, it has certain rules, certain codes the audience recognizes. I can use that to create something very big.

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.