I did 50 takes on Robert Shaw assembling the Greener Gun on 'Jaws.' The shark wasn't working, so I just kept shooting to make the production report look like we were accomplishing something and to keep cast and crew from going crazy from boredom. It was a strategic indulgence.

A lot of the films I've made probably could have worked just as well 50 years ago, and that's just because I have a lot of old-fashion values.

Technology can be our best friend, and technology can also be the biggest party pooper of our lives. It interrupts our own story, interrupts our ability to have a thought or a daydream, to imagine something wonderful, because we're too busy bridging the walk from the cafeteria back to the office on the cell phone.

Casting sometimes is fate and destiny more than skill and talent, from a director's point of view.

I would love to do a musical. I would love that. I would have to find the right book, the right story, but some day I'm going to make one. I would really like to go off and direct a musical. That's what I would really like to do when I grow up.

One of the gratuities about being a director is that you can volunteer yourself out of difficult details.

I feel like Ive been engaged to the British Empire since 1980 and tonight you have given me the ring knighthood.