I dream for a living. Once a month the sky falls on my head, I come to, and I see another movie I want to make.

There were so many odd, strange things about Abraham Lincoln that I think nobody knew how to pigeonhole him.

In the re-creation of combat situations, and this is coming from a director who's never been in one, being mindful of what these veterans have actually gone through, you find that the biggest concern is that you don't look at war as a geopolitical endeavor.

When war comes, two things happen - profits go way, way up and all perishables go way, way down. There becomes a market for them.

I think that the perceived downs in my own career come from just managing my time and not feeling that I have enough time for my family or my friends. You could put that in the personal life category but it's all one category because I've got to balance my family.

I thought film was more important than life itself for many years. But I was naive to the world until my first child was born in 1985.

The Japanese had a very strong belief in Bushido, death before dishonour. They were fighting for their country; they were the aggressors in World War II.