The movies that influenced me were movies that told their stories through pictures more than words.

You freeze with the number of opportunities given to you and just decide to do nothing at all.

Thank God I don't live in Los Angeles. I think if you're there the whole time it just gets out of proportion and you lose touch completely with reality.

You think about taking audiences on a journey.

There have been screenwriters who I'm sure would gladly kill me, because I've been very fast and loose with their work, because I felt like it wasn't up to my high standards. I would push and pull it on set, and make changes all the time. But then when you're working with an original screenplay, my theater instincts kick in, and I suddenly become very keeper-of-the-words.

Truly great actors carry their characters in silence with them. They communicate without words the relationships that predate the movie.

The perceived wisdom is that people do not go in large numbers to black-and-white movies anymore - which is a great shame, but I'd love to make a black-and-white movie one day.