The only person standing in your way is you.

It's now or never. This is simple to say, but then to live like that is not easy at all, I'm sorry. You have to be aware enough so that you can see situations as they pass in front of you and be able to catch the instant, whatever it is. Many times, you just don't see the moment when you were yawning and then it's too late.

La Haine - first of all, it was the story of friendship. I was very close with Mathieu Kassovitz; he was somebody I met in the nights of Paris. And the hip-hop scene and all that... You know, it was very much about doing our own thing, and some of the subject matter was so close to what we knew and the people we were hanging out with.

Neither of us are workaholics. I think the key thing is to accept that if you only exist through what you do, then you become what you do, and this is very wrong.

I grew up watching 'Raging Bull.

I didn't want to be part of that tradition of French cinema that wasn't really watched by the people of my age. I didn't really care to be in the last André Téchiné or Claude Chabrol movie, even though some of them are really interesting. For me, it was much more important to work with Mathieu Kassovitz or Gaspar Noé. It was for me a question of identity.

Good guys need to be a little dirty otherwise they're just boring.