Sônia Braga reacted in a beautiful way to the draft I sent her, so we just made the film ["Aquarius"] as I had written it. Emilie [Lesclaux], my wife and producer, told me, "This is not a two-hour film. This is going to be longer." And I said, "Well, let's try and make it work, whatever length it is."

We can bring to characters dark and bright sides that nobody even dreams about.

You see all these old buildings [in Rio] going down or catching fire overnight, and it is so sad. I am very connected with these buildings because they are our history. It is the only one that we have.

The ruins of classic movie theaters are a personal obsession of mine, and I've made a couple of documentaries about it.

I have two kids now and through watching them, I keep having flashbacks to my own childhood.

I just hope the film [Aquarius] doesn't feel overly nostalgic because too much nostalgia for me leads to depression. I think Clara is very pragmatic.

It's so sad to me [see the director's versions of films] because it shows how the filmmaker never got to make the film he had originally envisioned. You watch it and go, "Oh my god, he had to cut that scene! I can't believe it."