I just don't believe that you can't make anything happen. I think if something's good and you believe in it, and you care about it, and you give it love and nurture it, it's going to happen.

Pauline Kael had seen Nashville, and she loved Nashville. When I called her, she immediately responded to me because we had become friends, and I told her how great this film was, and she told me, "Well, I'll have to see it for myself." So I showed it to her, and she flipped.

My mother lived her life through movies and books - she read everything there was to read. And she read to me every night. I never went to sleep without her reading to me. And she fantasized about the book and she would talk about it, the place, and you would think that after she read the book and after she told you stories about it, that she had actually been there. I learned about story from her, and I learned the value of a great story, and the value of great characters.

I'm a good party guest...the problem is, I feel like I'm working all the time. "Give us an Elvis Presley story! Give us a Frank Sinatra story!"

As my life went on and I met Frank Sinatra and people like that, and I watched live performers on stage, I learned how to tell a story. Because if you listen to Sinatra, all of his songs are stories; there's a beginning, middle, and end. So that's where it comes from.

I can do anything - but that doesn't mean I should do that. I need to enjoy what I do. I enjoy making movies.

I am humble. It was an honor, and I cried the first time I saw the film His Way. Because to have people of that caliber, like Julia Roberts, take the time to sit down and give a day or two of their lives to a film about me, that they're not getting paid for, is pretty extraordinary.