There is this idea that its very different from the French point of view to work in America blah, blah, blah. But I think its different from one person to the other, not from one country to the other.

And now I have a big house, nice clothes and I travel in first class and I love it, so maybe it's time to enjoy being a star.

Yes. The way people behave, the paradoxes, the contradictions. All these things we have to live with and still pretend that everything is only black or white. That, I think, is the most interesting thing in human nature. The fact that we have to do one thing and pretend something else. That’s when it becomes very interesting. If you can literally speak the way you feel, then it’s not interesting anymore. It’s when you have to lie that it becomes interesting.

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 have a huge relationship with Brazil; it's almost a love affair, I would say. And to me, to introduce that specific martial art like capoeira in Hollywood movies was something important to me.

I'm producing more, but I think to direct, one has to have a burning desire, and that's not me. I'd rather do something else.