Good directing is about getting the performance to be just what's right for the movie.

I cannot forget a conversation that I had with an elderly couple from the tribe. They asked me whether I would kill them after I had finished. When I asked them why they asked that, they replied, Because you white men always do!

Making the City Of Joy gave me the best political education of my life. It became a wrestling match between an Englishman who had gradually ceased to be a Marxist, and a culture that was becoming more Marxist by the day.

I've never wanted to do something where I'd berate the audience.

Very good coaches for ski jumpers stand at the top of the slope and watch the jumpers prepare, rather than standing at the bottom and watching them land.

Sitting down to a meal with an Indian family is different from sitting down to a meal with a British family.

I like cinema audiences. I respect them, and I talk to them just like I would anybody I know.