I did not like 'The Hurt Locker.' It's a lazy way to make a movie, frankly. I could put you on the edge of your seat quite easily, and have you feel the tension for 2 hours, if every other scene practically is, 'Should we cut the red wire or the green wire?'

I mean if politics was my main motivation I would be doing politics. But I'm a filmmaker.

Under Reagan came the idea of putting your pension plan in the stock market, which wasn't a guaranteed pension.

The movie theater is never going away. If that was a case why are there still restaurants? People still have kitchens in their home!

Today, whether it is a student who holds a sit-in to get the army recruiters off his campus, or the mother of a dead soldier who refuses to leave the front gate of the president's ranch, we continue to be saved by brave people who risk ridicule and rejection but end up turning huge tides of public opinion in the direction of righteousness. We owe them enormous debts of gratitude. It is not easy to stand up for what is right, especially when everyone else is afraid to leave the comfortable path of conformity.

My film about Bush didn't prevent his reelection.

I come from the state of Michigan. We were the first English-speaking government in the world to outlaw the death penalty, back in the 1840s. We have never had, as a state, the death penalty in Michigan. I was raised with that, and even Republicans in Michigan, nobody would even think of putting a measure on the ballot to have the death penalty.