I was a heavy drinker, but the alcohol affected my heart rather than my liver. So I stopped. I smoke grass now. I say that to everybody, because marijuana should be legalized. It's ridiculous that it isn't. If at the end of the day I feel like smoking a joint I do it. It changes the perception of what I've been through all day.

I want to see something that I've never seen before, so how can I tell that actor what that is? I'm not trying to construct a document or situation that is what I want, because what I want is something new to me.

I love fishing. You put that line in the water and you don't know what's on the other end. Your imagination is under there.

The artist and the multitude are natural enemies. They always will be, both ways. The artist is an enemy of the multitude, and the multitude is the enemy of the artist. And when the disguise comes off and they're both standing facing one another, they're just there at odds end.

I never knew what I wanted, except that it was something I hadn't seen before.

Most of my films I call arena films. I deal with a confined area -- an arena -- and I try to cover every aspect of it.

All of my films deal with the same thing: striving, socially and culturally, to stay alive.