I was called recently in some article "Hollywood's Oldest Established Rebel." So I'm sort of working from the inside now, with still a little bit of a rebellious spirit.

I think one of the reasons movies are the quintessential modern art form is that it is partially a business. The director needs a crew - the writer, the producer, etcetera - and to have that, he needs money.

The safest genre is the horror film. But the most unsafe - the most dangerous - is comedy. Because even if your horror film isn't very good, you'll get a few screams and you're okay. With a comedy, if they don't laugh, you're dead.

There were two practical reasons we moved to Venice. One was that there was an artists movement and a countercultural movement. Lots of people we might want to hire lived in the area. We also wanted to buy in a lower rent area that looked like it was going to be gentrified so that we could eventually sell the studio for more money.

As a producer, I probably am a little stronger than most, since I was a director originally.

You can make a movie about anything, as long as it has a hook to hang the advertising on.

There are eleven or twelve or thirteen cities in China with populations of over 10 million people and most people in the West have never even heard of these cities.