When you're doing a big movie, you're gone for 10 months to a year.

I was always amazed about how much I could finally squeeze into a thirty second commercial.

Same thing with film, by the time you've finished shooting and you've really been into everything, you've touched up everything in the editing room. You've gone in there and taken little bits from everything.

I think movies are getting dumber, actually. Where it used to be 50/50, now it`s 3% good, 97% stupid.

It goes back a long way. I wanted to make Tristan + Isolde as my second movie. My first movie was The Duellists. And I was standing in a very romantic part of France looking around me thinking, "My God, this would be perfect for Tristan," and to cut a long story short it never happened because I did Alien instead.

A hit for me is if I enjoy the movie, if I personally enjoy the movie.

Audiences are less intrigued, honestly, by battle. They're more intrigued by human relations. If you're making a film about the trappings of the period, and you're forgetting that human relationships are the most engaging part of the storytelling process, then you're in trouble.