The storyboard for me is the way to visualise the entire movie in advance.

I know that I come from mid-20th century America, urban, specifically downtown New York, specifically an Italian-American area, Roman Catholic - that's who I am. And a part of what I know is there's a decency to people who tried to make a living in the kind of world that was around us and also the Skid Row area of the Bowery; it impressed me.

We’re face to face with images all the time in a way that we never have been before... Young people need to understand that not all images are there to be consumed like fast food and then forgotten – we need to educate them to understand the difference between moving images that engage their humanity and their intelligence, and moving images that are just selling them something.

Actually, I was rock climbing on this film at 7 in the morning. It was quite unique! But in any event, the colour of the leaves disturbed me so we had to work on that. On the other hand, I didn't want to drench it in a kind of depressing tone.

People want to classify and say, 'OK, this is a gangster film.' 'This is a Western.' 'This is a... ' You know? It's easy to classify and it makes people feel comfortable, but it doesn't matter, it doesn't really matter.

I don't think there's a subject matter that can't absorb 3-D; that can't tolerate the addition of depth as a storytelling technique.

I'm going to be 60, and I'm almost used to myself.