Those of us who make films try to make something that we're feeling and that we would like. Then we just hope an audience responds the same way. It's very important to have the electrical circuit made, but I don't have control over how people feel when they flip the switch. So the whole idea of marketing research and test screenings is just foreign to me.

Consequently, I get inspiration from all over the place. But it's not like a calculated thing on my part, or a way that I see myself, you know? I'm just interested in things that move me, and I don't care where they come from. In fact, I'm interested if they come from a place I wouldn't expect, or would seem foreign to me on some level.

[Iggi Pop] is very self-taught, self-educated, but, man, that guy knows about so many things.

Nothing is original. Steal from anywhere that resonates with inspiration or fuels your imagination.

The counterculture is always repackaged and made into a product. It's part of America.

I like marginal characters, I like real people. I learn more from talking to my plumber when he comes to fix my toilet than I do from meeting a movie star. I think my movies are in the same vein as that.

I never start with the story first, which is maybe obvious, because the narrative line of my films is really not that strong or dramatic. They're very simple.