When I make a new movie, I always get stuck with, "That's not an Oliver Stone film." But I don't know what to do about that except just move on.

I've met people who will go to a movie that I can't stand and they say that they saw that movie ten times. There's something they like and identified in that movie, and I don't see it.

I do believe there are leaders who are like lightning and they come along and they lead. The Lincolns of the world, the Alexander the Greats, they do exist. They have existed.

I'm interested, I suppose, in tortured power.

My ego is nothing - look what Alexander the Great achieved. And I felt he was a figure outside time, a figure we don't even understand, because he's frankly pre-Christian, and his concepts of honor go back to Homer.

I think experience will teach you a combination of liberalism and conservatism. We have to be progressive and at the same time we have to retain values. We have to hold onto the past as we explore the future.

One of the joys of going to the movies was that it was trashy, and we should never lose that.