Is it fair to have given us the memory of what was and the desire of what could be when we must suffer what is?

I took two years away from making films to write a novel.

And I think I often choose to do something because it's quite different from what I've done before.

Well, if you're talking about the current climate, there's a lack of content in American film because I think people are deeply confused about their emotions, and they don't regret certain aspects of their own foreign policy.

The great thing about fairy tales and myths is that they go beyond character. They're not about character. They're about more basic things. They're about basic fears or longings or desires or fantasies, and stuff like that.

Hollywood always chooses young and beautiful men and throws them into enormous, highly expensive toy-like movies, and I think sometimes it's hard for the maturity of the craft to emerge in that kind of glare.

When you've written a movie, you then get together with a whole lot of people and make it. In many ways, I think it is far nicer to be with people rather than being completely solitary.