For me, the filmmaking has to be about the dramaturgy.

If movies have to satisfy every possible quadrant before they're even made, they're dull. You only get great things when people overreach themselves.

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.

Films have gotten leaner and leaner, cutting out all variations from the story line.

There's no point in making a film out of a great book. The book's already great. What's the point?

I hoped that grief was similar to the other emotions. That it would end, the way happiness did. Or laughter.

I just got back from New York, and I realized in New York, it's very difficult to hear a New York accent. It's almost impossible, actually - everybody seems to speak like they're from the Valley or something. When I grew up, you could tell what street in Dublin someone's from by the way they talked.