If you look at the heroes of antiquity and myth, they all have flaws. It's something that they have to overcome; their flaws are something that they have to act in spite of. The challenge is not to defy your fate, but to endure it. That is heroic.

A screenplay is not a finished product; a novel is. A screenplay is a blueprint for something - for a building that will most likely never be built.

There are moments in one's life where you look back and you say, 'Well, I wish I had done this differently.

Leo Tolstoy said the purpose of art is to teach you to love life. And that's what I want.

The director is a bit analogous to the conductor of a symphony orchestra. It's a collaborative adventure.

Actors will change their face, will change their hair, will change their voice, will disappear into the role. A movie star doesn't disappear.

The truth is that I used to read J.J. bedtime stories. He came up to me at the FOX commissary about four years ago and he said, "Do you remember what you gave me for my Barmitzvah?" I said no. He said, "You gave me the annotated Sherlock Holmes and my son is reading it now." It was the gift that kept on giving.