My mother was okay with me not playing it safe. She made an agreement with my father that I was going to be raised differently than my brother and sister were. My parents went through the whole sixties rebellion with my brother and sister. But I didn't feel like I had to rebel because I didn't have anyone telling me I couldn't do something. I never went into that parents-as-enemies stage.

I am, to be quite honest, sick of hero stories.

An artist is an entertainer, number one - a storyteller who takes people someplace, who gives them what they didn't know they wanted.

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.

When I'm working as a director, I might have an idea of my own but I'm also trying to get great ideas out of my actors. Directing is much more psychological - it's a lot like being a general. And you have to be organized. While you're making a film, you have between 2 and 500 people asking you a billion questions.

Creativity is a gift, but if you don't know how to use it you might not even know it's there. There's a lot of creativity in the air, but it's meaningless if you're not open to receiving it.

You have to stop yourself from even thinking about failing.