The trouble with talking about acting is that it's like sex. It's enormously fun to do but just dreadfully embarrassing when you have to talk about it.

So the actual privilege is that you can then take time off - and if you don't, you're a fool. You're earning all this money to support children whom you then don't see, which is absurd.

I remember coming on my first set and it being a playground of things I wanted to ask questions about: cameras and lenses and what the lenses do, what's the focus puller doing and how does that work? Why is there less margin for error when there's less light? I was always asking questions and watching directors closely.

I was born a Catholic and now I'm a lapsed Catholic. I'm something but I'm not a believer any more.

The trouble with talking about acting is that it's like sex. It's enormously fun to do but just dreadfully embarrassing when you have to talk about it.

I don't want to infantilize the actor; I want to empower the actor. Actors can be many things, but all of the really good ones are really great storytellers, and I'm interested in that. If you're not interested in that as a director then you better be Stanley Kurbrick.

Actors can be many things - vain, venal, self-serving, obnoxious, bullies - but all of the good ones are great storytellers. I wanted to watch what my actors were doing and how they were telling the story.