I think it's worse for actors, though, because people have to choose you. As a director, I get to choose the actors, but most of the time, actors have to be chosen in order to work.

Fantasy isn't just a jolly escape: It's an escape, but into something far more extreme than reality, or normality. It's where things are more beautiful and more wondrous and more terrifying. You move into a world of conflicting extremes.

The English are such a frightened, nervous, insecure group of people - they no longer rule the world!

I want brave people. Fearless ones. A good actor just goes out and leaps off the edge and develops wings on his way down, hopefully. That's the kind of people I really enjoy working with. Playing safe isn't much fun. I like danger. It's controlled danger, always, and that's why I hope I don't lure too many good actors down into the pits with me, because I hope they maintain their own unique talents.

I was born in 1940 in Minnesota and grew up in the country... dirt roads, swamps, lakes, woods.

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

All films are learning processes. I am still trying to work out how you make a movie. I didn't study at film school or any of those things. I didn't bother with film theory.