I went to volcanoes where I knew that there was a lot of mythology around them; there was something like the creation of gods and monsters and demons.

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

The deal was we had to have people accompanying us and they would ask us not to film something [in North Korea]. For example, we wanted to film at a certain place and there happened to be a building under construction and it didn't look as fancy as the other buildings, so they wanted us to shoot where everything looked finished and made a good impression of the cityscape.

Fragility of modern world leaves me with the idea we'd better anticipate what's going on. We take our right steps today and now. And we'd better avoid, that we are overdependent on, let's say, the internet.

I have made 70 or so films. In all my films not a single actor, a single extra, was hurt. Not one. So statistics are on my side when I say I'm clinically sane.

You must live life in its very elementary forms. The Mexicans have a very nice word for it: pura vida. It doesn't mean just purity of life, but the raw, stark-naked quality of life. And that's what makes young people more into a filmmaker than academia.

I'm talking a lot on financing in the Masterclass and I know what it means to because I had to finance my first films, all of them, and I earned my money as a welder in a steel factory doing night shifts while I was still in high school during the day.