I turn up in Los Angeles every now and then, so I can get some big money films in order to finance my smaller money films.

On the other hand, you get other films that are spread over a much longer period of time and it's entirely exhausting. But there's always light at the end of the tunnel with a film.

I've spent a great deal of my life doing independent film, and that is partly because the subject matter interests me and partly because that is the basis of the film industry. That's where the film-makers come from, it's where they start and sometimes its where they should have stayed.

We are all racing towards death. No matter how many great, intellectual conclusions we draw during our lives, we know they're all only man-made, like God. I begin to wonder where it all leads. What can you do, except do what you can do as best you know how.

If it's a low-brow bawdy comedy, it's got to stand the chance of succeeding as such. If it's an intellectual piece, a drama, and so forth. And of course, once you've determined the level of the piece, do it the best you know how. And then don't make concessions. To audiences, or to pursestrings, or whatever.

Lotte Lenya was all emotion. She wasn't anything but emotion. She was not an intellectual.

I've done lots of films with first directors, so it's not unusual for me.