So the Lincoln movie gets trashed because Connecticut voted for the amendment - not to mention how the people in Connecticut feel - but there's a lot of that. And I think it precedes from a fundamental misunderstanding of cinema. They are entertainment. And I'd like to say that entertainment isn't a synonym for disposable or mindless or stupid. Hamlet? Pretty entertaining from where I come from.

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.

We were extremely prescient in that we predicted the Soviet coup before it happened. That was kind of amazing.

Art and commerce are not irreconciliable, they are inextricably intertwined.

There are movies I've made that I think no celebrations are in order.

The first thing that put me on the map was my Sherlock Holmes novel.

In fact, we've entered a world which is arguably much more dangerous than [being] eyeball to eyeball with the USSR.