Other people have worked with big studios and maintained control over their movies. I see no reason why it wouldn't work for me.

Defining yourself by your taste is easier than defining yourself by any genuine stance on something.

I always viewed life as material for a movie.

When I'm editing, I tend to cut, go back over it, cut, go back over it, cut, so by the time I'm done, even with a cut, I don't have a rough cut and then work on it so much. I have a pretty rigorous cut of the movie that's usually in the range of what the final movie is going to be. It doesn't mean I don't work on it a lot after that, but I get it into a shape so I feel I can really tell what it needs, or at least it's ready to show people.

Manhattan is so tailored. It's driven by appealing to the very wealthy and tourists.

Nothing that I've turned down do I feel like I should have done. Because I've generated everything I've done, I've never really considered doing something that I haven't originated myself. There are definitely things that I've been brought that someone else made good movies out of. But it's not a path I've followed, so I don't have regret.

I like having associations with locations beyond their meaning for the specific movie.