Only the poets can hold the country together, and I wanted to hold Germany together.

I couldn't roam wildly and speak secretly with villagers [in North Korea]. No way you could do that. And honestly, I didn't even try. I was realistic of what I could do and yet persuaded them into accepting numerous things that I shouldn't have filmed.

I live my life outside of the glitz and glamour of the red carpet events, and so you’ll never see me there. I’m never at parties.

I know what I'm talking about and I've never been over budget, in 70 films.

I doubt that VR will really replace the quality of books. If you want to go into let's say the Prado in Madrid and you want to go into Hieronymus Bosch or whatever, you'd rather go into books and you take your time and it's sitting there all day long and you go back and revisit it and it becomes part of your physical life.

I'm very, very curious about how people live under the volcano, how they handle the permanence of danger.

I have never been one of those who cares about happiness. Happiness is a strange notion. I am just not made for it. It has never been a goal of mine; I do not think in those terms.