Most directors prefer to direct everything themselves. I thought I could on Lord Of The Rings, but very quickly found out that the sheer scale prevented it.

Everything is in a script for a reason, and only by being part of a writing team (or writing it yourself), do you really understand the intention of every beat.

Structure is important in film, but there's often structure to be found in the most unlikely of places! It's quite possible to build a structured story and retain idiosyncrasy.

I think that you can treat a classic like a museum piece -stuffed and mounted- or you can make it a living, breathing narrative that is unfolding right then and there.

Filmmaking for me is always aiming for the imaginary movie and never achieving it.

For a lot of my childhood, I didn't want to direct movies because I didn't really know what directing was.

One of the first movies I ever saw was 'Batman,' based on the TV series with Adam West and Burt Ward.