If we were a primitive society, movie stars would be gods.

I didn't grow up thinking of movies as film, or art, but as movies, something to do on a Saturday afternoon.

You can be moderate in a way and still intense in your views. It's the extremism that gets frightening; religious fundamentalism and wacko-left liberalism is crazy.

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 see my job as trying to entertain you, to be balanced in some way, and morally responsible. I don't want to glorify a killer. I don't want to glorify a rapist. I don't want to do those things, but on the other hand I don't want to lecture to you, either.

Once I start to do a film, it has inferences. If a guy walks down a street and kicks a dog, you're saying something about that guy. A guy walks down the street and somebody's about to be run over and he shoves him out of his way and gets hit by the car himself, you're saying that guy's a hero. You can't avoid making certain statements.

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