I always loved silent movies. I was not a specialist, but I loved them. And when I started directing, I became really fascinated by the format - how it works, the device of the silent movie. It's not the same form of expression as a talkie. The lack of sounds makes you participate in the storytelling

But I don't think of myself as a foreigner or a Frenchman! I just think of myself as a director. Whether I'm French or Australian or whatever, it's really not important.

If you try to make a silent movie with a normal script and you just pull out the dialogue, you will have big problems with the actors because you will ask them to tell a story that you don't know.

I make almost all the decisions on set and have to deal with all the financial aspects.

I went to Hollywood. I put the action in Hollywood. I watched a lot of movies, maybe 100 or something close to that. I have tons of DVDs now at home. I don't know what to do with them because they're not useful anymore. My kids never watched them. I read a lot of autobiographies, listened to a lot of music by classical era composers like Franz Waxman, Max Steiner, Bernard Herrmann, Alfred Newman and Leonard Bernstein. I listened to only that kind of music the entire time I was writing, even at home.

I'm very happy in France making movies.

I am unusual for a Frenchman - I have absolutely nothing against the United States.