That's my policy - to be positive, to just hope that something will happen. If you start with all your fears, your receptivity is for the negative.

You don't have to patronize your audience, and you can mix art and commerce in a profound way. You can simultaneously play to the sophisticated, 60-year-old theatergoers and to 4-year-olds.

I have directed good actors and have gone through the process which is more detailed in theater in a way. You have to get people to stay for two or three hours in a performance. They need more talk and rehearsal than in films.

I received from my experience in Japan an incredible sense of respect for the art of creating, not just the creative product. We're all about the product. To me, the process was also an incredibly important aspect of the total form.

In America, the word art has become like the word adultery. It's this big scarlet letter. When you say you're an artist, people are like, "Ugh."

We're really having a problem right now in our culture. I haven't seen one movie lately in which the story and visuals have been equally good.

Americans are attracted to the dark side. But which movies should be allowed to be violent and show that dark side, and which should not? I don't believe in censorship, but I do think there are horrible movies that are bad for you.