When I came for the first time to the United States, visiting, I was absolutely fascinated by New York.

So, thanks God, our films, our first films were suddenly being appreciated by the Western media; especially France was very good, and Switzerland was very good.

You know, 20 years... the films of television when it started, the literature, radio in communist countries, they're clean as a whistle; there was no violence, no sex, no drugs, nothing.

Well, I wouldn't say that this experience had any influence on my decision to do this film about Andy, because Andy was apolitical. Andy was never political.

You know what happened, you know, in 1938: France, England, you know, just sold out Czechoslovakia to Hitler.

Well, listen, you know, the Czech saying is, you know, when you are drowning you are grabbing even a little twig. That's what all Czechs were doing, grabbing for... with the hope for this little twig.

Ideological pressure is much more crippling than commercial pressure. Crippling to your own freedom of thinking and creating, crippling the final results. If you wanted to succeed during the really hard-line totalitarian regime, you have to make so many compromises to please the censors that you don't recognize the original idea from the final result.