Everything that I've done was prudent and never has anyone gotten hurt in my films - not a single actor, not a single extra, ever.

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

I am someone who takes everything very literally. I simply do not understand irony, a defect I have had ever since I was able to think independently.

I have worked for YouTube like texting and driving because I was curious to test what's out there and how does it function, can I release something like about texting and driving to very young audiences, at the age where they do their drivers test? And the response was phenomenal, millions of people saw it.

It's curiosity, and always a sense of poetry. You see it in particular in the chapter "Iceland" where I'm reciting ancient Icelandic poetry. It has this very beautiful gravitas in conjunction with the volcanoes.

I'm not a one-trick horse.

Read, read, read, read, read, read, read, read, read, read, read, read, read...if you don't read, you will never be a filmmaker.