Movies cost so much that studios really try to impose their personality over yours. A lot of times, you can get swallowed up in that and end up making movies that are indistinguishable from anybody else's. One of the things I've always tried to do is to inject myself as much as possible into the movie, so I feel like it's mine. But that also comes from what you choose to do and what you choose not to do. There are certain projects I could have said yes to, and I know exactly how they would have turned out: exactly the way they turned out when someone else did them.

You do form a cadre of people that you trust and who are good at their jobs and who know you and what your quirks and foibles are. It makes making movies very collegial and a lot more fun.

There's so little difference between television and features as far as you make the film. I mean, you have less money and it's a little quicker, but the concept is all on television.

I go to a lot of independents and foreign films. I really try to keep up and see what there is to see. If you really love movies, it's the act of watching them that you really love. You can sit and watch a B-Western and have just as much fun watching that as you can a classic. That minute when the lights go down is the part where the magic happens, because you know this could be great. You're always kind of excited, like, "Here I am again in the church of movies, and Mass is starting.".

I've sort of closed my mind off to reality shows: I just don't watch them, don't care about them, don't know who the characters are, but they're all in general usage.

Editing is where movies are made or broken. Many a film has been saved and many a film has been ruined in the editing room.

When I was growing up in the '60s I would have thought that westerns would last forever.