And you know, when you take on something like this, you read a book like this, you know that it's going to be an adventure. That's part of what draws you to it.

The movies that made me want to make movies were action movies, and thrillers, and Kurosawa films, you know, where you have an opportunity every day to shoot it in an unusual way. I was looking for something like that.

Any story that Billy Wilder told, you can tell in a Western.

I haven't seen Clones, which has been during this period when I haven't seen much of anything, but I did see Phantom Menace, and see my feelings about it - see, first of all, I think that when you make a lot of movies, your attitude about the movies changes.

I mean, the trouble with some of the kind of relationship movies I've done, is there's only so many ways you can shoot a conversation. I was really tired of talking heads.

If your work is going to draw from life, you'd better work very hard to keep up with reality.

Almost every other Western in the last ten years has failed, since Dances with Wolves.