Every frame and every scene has to have an intention.

It's only at this age that I can say the word 'art' without flinching.

Never treat anything you do as a stepping stone. Do it fully, and follow it completely.

Americans are not used to being bombed in their beds, but if you come from anywhere outside America, it's not highly unusual.

I look for the humanity in people, however big the politics or oppressive the situation may be, whether it's subsumed within a human being or between two human beings. I want to help us hold a mirror to ourselves.

They say now in America that final cut doesn't mean anything. As Harvey Weinstein said to some film-maker, 'You can have final cut. I'll open your film in Arkansas.'

Post 9/11, so much has changed in New York that it does not give you that homely feeling which it did before.