I can tell you that my contribution based on my interpretation of the book is unchanged. The other things, in terms of doing the research and following the trail of it, were probably pretty similar to what I would have done then. I think that what makes me celebrate that it took the 10 years is the various other people and contributors that I ended up having on board.

And dressed her [Madonna] up like a turkey. After I read that stuff, I thought long and hard about what one would do to dress someone up like a turkey. And I nailed it. I figured you've got to get out the Playtex glove, blow it up and put the glove over the head.

The advice you give to young directors for sure is to go out and become some version of a successful movie actor. Do that first and say yes to people like Terrence Malick and Clint Eastwood and Woody Allen when they come and offer you movies. It's a great front row seat to filmmaking.

If you can't count on your heart having some kind of unified response, you can't count on anything. You use your heart as a barometer for your movie's completeness.

There is no re-inventing the wheel.

Bukowski said, "I know I'm good, so I like that people think I'm bad, because it gives me a dimension, effortlessly."

I can't imagine being quite as lucky at any other time - I certainly never have been before. That goes right down from my producing partners to people like Eddie Vedder. But the two things that make me feel that this was meant to be now and not before was that the story itself has more resonance today - I find it a more important story today than it was then - and Emile.