Well, there's no question that a good script is an absolutely essential, maybe the essential thing for a movie.

Relationship films are political. If a woman is sitting in a waiting room in an office and a man walks in and sits down, it's a political situation. If he decides to smoke, does he ask her or does he just light up? If he lights up, what does she do? It's politics.

I have to have a working knowledge of light, and optics, film emulsions and their properties, and lenses, otherwise I can't create the shoots that are the vocabulary of the films. But it is not necessary for me to be a cameraman, I can hire a cameraman.

I'm not trying to push my political agenda on anybody. I'll do that like any other citizen by giving money to a party or candidate I believe in. I don't mind going out and endorsing somebody I believe in. But when we're talking about my films, I don't think my politics should have anything to do with it.

People aren't interested in paying $10 or $12 to go to the movies and to be lectured to politically. I'm not either. So I don't try to make those kinds of films.

I'm not a very good predictor in any area of art, particularly my own. I don't know how to evaluate that.

It's always interesting to play people different from yourself, it would be boring for me to play myself.