Every film I make I feel like I am getting a mini-masters degree, it's a wonderful life path and you get to immerse yourself in an intriguing world for a couple of years.

In the Soviet Union, for instance, the pressure on the chess stars was immense. When Boris Spassky came home after losing that match, he found he no longer had an apartment in Moscow.

I think all of us, looking back on our careers and our lives, there'll probably be a "road not taken" that we'll regret and mourn. Certainly, artists will always feel that way, especially when the path taken was more commercial than the one not taken.

You know, and the fact that Nina Simone had to start playing in clubs and sing because her parents had moved north to support her music education. You know, so she had to sing. She had to make a living 'cause she was supporting her family. So poverty and race put her in this place which, you know, created enormous success, but it's not what her psyche was all about.

When your entire life is focused around one goal and one goal only, and you have no other pursuits, it enables you to achieve enormous mastery.

It has a lot to do with just sort of trust in the relationship that builds between the filmmaker and the subject. There are some people who will never be relaxed in front of a camera, and in some ways that's my failing as a filmmaker to not put them at ease. It's also a function of time, and if you have that type of time.

Each project draws you in on its own merits as opposed to an intellectual choice of, "Well, I'm going to shift from vérité filmmaking to more archival."