I'm besotted by [Kirsten Dunst] now. I think she's just wonderful. I can't think for a second that however much she'd worked in America, she would never have had the chance to play [a role in Lars Von Trier's 'Melancholia' ] like that. You have to get outside of the States to do something like that.

I put everything I can into the mulberry of my mind and hope that it is going to ferment and make a decent wine. How that process happens, I'm sorry to tell you I can't describe.

Obviously, the arrogance of my own nature in regards to other people's work would suggest that I think I'm talented.

My springboard is always the script. Even if the script is taken from a novel, I often haven't read the novel...

From John Huston to Fred Zinnemann and Richard Fleischer and all those great American directors.

We shot ['Sailcloth'] five days down in Cornwall, and you couldn't have asked for a more beautiful place. It was a couple of tough days at sea, but when I say tough it was still enjoyable.

What I like about [Berthold] Brecht, it's very interesting. When Helene Weigel came over and somebody talked about Lotte Lenya and said "well, she wasn't alienating." And Weigel said "No, no, no. Why, Lotte Lenya was so true - who cares?" She said: "Berti only developed the theory of alienation in order to stop bad acting." I heard her say that. Now that's brilliant.