To be an artist, you don't have to compose music or paint or be in the movies or write books. It's just a way of living. It has to do with paying attention, remembering, filtering what you see and answering back, participating in life.

I wrote a letter to the magazine [Time magazine] pointing out that [Richard] Corliss's comparison of Christopher Lee's Saruman to Osama Bin Laden, and the vastly outnumbered defenders of Helm's Deep united against the Orcs to the "Coalition of the Willing" fighting the good fight against Muslim hordes, displayed the simplistic, xenophobic, and arrogant worldview that makes the government of the United States feared and mistrusted around the world. The editors claimed they had no space to print my brief letter, which I felt was dishonest and cowardly.

In 2016 we are faced with a particularly bizarre and unappetizing choice as regards the two main political parties' presidential candidates, in my opinion.

A lot of times, movies that are in the top 10 lists or maybe even win Baftas or Oscars, you then watch them a year later and you go, 'Maybe it wasn't so great.'

If you're trying to please everyone, then you're not going to make anything that is honestly yours, I don't think, in the long run.

The Road was a movie that has a good reputation, even though it wasn't released very well, but that's a movie I'm very proud of.

I don't think you get to be pope without making some enemies, like you do when you're president.