Once the voices are in your head, it's either make a movie or kill a lot of people.

I do think so much of what I do is reactive to the way the world sees itself, or the way the world is being portrayed. I wanted to offer an alternative to that. Whether it is accepted or not is beside the point, but it's an alternative.

I have always got medicine I want to give to people.

I got my head bashed in at a demonstration against the Vietnam War. Police were losing control because they were up against a world they really didn't understand.

I wasn't creative or theatrical. I was just doing everything. I was head cheerleader, valedictorian - it was ridiculous!

Whatever I do might be good, it might be bad, it might be all sorts of things, but it's not mediocre.

I find Hollywood gives these pat stories, and they're reassuring stories, and I don't really want to give people that. Hollywood does all that work. I'm offering, sometimes, an alternative to that. The answers aren't black-and-white. There may not even be answers in certain instances. The ground is not necessarily solid, either. So you've got to keep awake the whole time, even after the movie is over.