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.

To me, the stories that have always intrigued me are the stories of people leaving my movies and being affected by them. They walk home 20 blocks the wrong way. Or they lock themselves in their office. Or they find themselves weeping when in the shower after the film. And those intrigue me, because I know I've touched something inside them.

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

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

The success of the Hollywood marketing machine is to limit what we see. Not just to limit what we can see, but also to limit our expectations - to limit what we want to see.

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.

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