I've produced my own films for twenty years now - it means I have to talk to less people.

There's a religious basis to their [Bush and Chaney] kind of conservatism. It's rooted in a kind of fundamentalism. I'm afraid of that. I don't like that idea. I think all extremism is suspect.

I make films, and I hope that people come to see them. If they don't, I pay a big price. But I can't make decisions where I would change my own standards or my own taste in order to court the public in some way.

You know, essentially when you do a play you're reinterpreting a work of art that already exists. That's not what happens with a movie.

Making films is much more difficult than people imagine, and so the experience of actually directing them is not one I've ever relished.

The dance that happens, between actor and director, is a very delicate thing...it's why people tend to work together on many films over and over.

When you spend your life acting and being other people, as opposed to being the one person that you are, you learn that life is gray sometimes, not black and white. That what you thought was true isn't necessarily true if you switch sides.