I think producers are more interested in backing concepts than directors and writers. I don't think that's the right way of making a decision about whether you're going to back a film or not.

If the world ran the way a crew runs a set, we'd have a better, more progressive world.

Steve Jobs was the greatest inventor since Thomas Edison. He put the world at our fingertips.

I've always wanted to tell a story about Lincoln. I saw a paternal father figure; I saw someone who was completely, stubbornly committed to his ideals, to his vision.

I felt like an alien. I always felt like I never belonged to any group that I wanted to belong to.

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.

It starts with the writer-it's a familiar dictum, but somehow it keeps getting forgotten along the way. No film-maker, irrespective of his electronic bag of tricks, can ever afford to forget his commitment to the written word.