I would like to be Jupiter, and lie down in the firmament and make love to everybody.

What is more simple than to tell to a little boy, 'This is not the truth, it is a game?'

I remember in the circus learning that the clown was the prince, the high prince. I always thought that the high prince was the lion or the magician, but the clown is the most important.

Dante Alighieri is a universal poet, and great creators, they are writing for everybody always. Every single verse is very moving, and the beauty - if we don't understand, we just stay listening to the sound and it's like hearing music.

The first movie I saw - and I don't know if it influenced me - was Ben Hur. We watched it outside in a corn field, and it ran backwards. So the first movie I ever saw was Ben Hur, backwards.

My mother and my father went to the cinema for the first time when I made my first movie in 1978.

Dante Alighieri has the most glorious imagination of modern poetry. So it's talking about us, it's concerning us. Everything in it conveys sentiment, emotions. He is really the greatest poet ever. So I am really very proud to present the shining pearl of Italian culture around the world.