If people do not laugh it's not comedy.

A film has to be like a stone in the shoe.

I'm not a woman! Let's make that very clear! Oh I don't know, maybe I am. I am an American woman. Or 65 percent of me is.

You could say that when you introduce humour to your work, you also step back a little from it. You create a distance

When I was younger, I was fascinated by David Bowie, for example. he had created an entire myth around himself. It was as important as his music.

You know, I really do have some morals. I do actually care about people. And I do have a political standpoint.

It’s the opening of Manderlay in Cannes, and I’m sitting next to this guy who’s writing for a tiny fictitious French paper called ‘On the Sunny Side,’ and he’s writing a review on the film, and he’s obviously bored. Then he tells me about all the cars he owns, and how rich he is, and all these things... So, at a certain point, he says, "So what do you do?" Then I take out this very strange hammer we have in the Danish building business, and I say, "I kill." And then I kill him. It is as stupid as it sounds.