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.

Political correctness kills discussion.

My films generally center around thousands of pictures being flashed in rapid succession to create the illusion of motion.

When I show a film at a festival, I am showing myself. Everything is at stake for me.

If I made a musical in the beginning of my career, it would have been crane shots and tracking shots and people coming out of cakes and whatever, but these techniques are something that I’ve left behind me.

I am a man of very many anxieties but doing strange things with the camera is not one of them.

I think working with actors is a little bit how a chef would work with a potato or a piece of meat. You have to kind of have a look at the potato or the piece of meat and see what kind of possibilities are in the ingredient. I know I'm using the wrong metaphor. I think my job is to see what potato is there and from there, just work under their conditions.