When I was growing up, I don't remember being told that America was created so that everyone could get rich. I remember being told it was about opportunity and the pursuit of happiness. Not happiness itself, but the pursuit.

When I was growing up in the mid-'50s, the Roaring Twenties were a huge part of the culture. There were a number of films and a bunch of television shows that dealt with the mythology of the underworld from that period.

When I was growing up, I don't remember being told that America was created so that everyone could get rich. I remember being told it was about opportunity and the pursuit of happiness. Not happiness itself, but the pursuit.

For me, the key image is the boat coming through the fog at the beginning. It's something I imagined and liked and I guess there are other references in other films I make - the similar type of image. But I think it's interesting, it's breaking through the mystery, or maybe it stays in the fog... we don't really know. Where is he at the beginning of the film, who is he?

I accept all awards. I like them.

Well the thing is that the New York of 1846 to 1862 was very different from downtown New York now. Really nothing from that period still exists in New York.

My whole life has been movies and religion. That's it. Nothing else.