I don't know what life was like 1,000 years ago, but I imagine there was the same struggle: people trying to connect with each other.

Rehearsing is more about blocking in the case of movies, I think, and blocking, of course, is very important to the beauty of a scene.

I categorically resist this idea that films are supposed to be autobiographical and the only stories you tell are about your own life.

Life, to me, is never one color. Even in the saddest moments, you can have a chuckle. And in the happiest moments, you can shed a tear.

I'm a huge Crowley fan, I've always been. I tried to make a movie on his life a few years ago, but we didn't manage to put it together.

I think most video game movies have a problem, because they do try and have one foot in one door and another foot in a completely door.

As an actor, it's better to just be more loose and give yourself over. That's always fun. It's fun to just let go and be somebody else.

I think the way kids create is so inspiring. They're drawing a picture? They love the picture they drew; they're not tortured about it.

Music is thousands and thousands of years old and I don't think that basic, primitive connection to the language of music ever changes.

I guess I probably see myself as a director. If I had to choose, I think that that's the aspect of the process that I'm most excited by.

I like being able to just turn the microscope on a small number of people, get to know them, drop into their lives for a period of time.

Anyway, that was the germ of the idea and of course... you know this was early days of sociology and whatever, especially on television.

Some of my ideas for film or theater come to me in dreams. I'm also very creative when I'm talking to others. I believe in collaboration.

You're not simply entitled to be an actor - you're not an actor just because you call yourself one - you earn it. You earn it by working.

I think we all have a Wallace and Gromit inside us. Wallace is the part that has wild plans. Gromit is the sensible side, reining you in.

If I have to answer one more time, 'Why did you want to remake 'Straw Dogs?'' with the emphasis on the word 'why,' I'm going to flip out.

Flannery O'Connor is my creative hero. I think she's the greatest American writer. Her book, 'Mystery and Manners,' is my creative bible.

Tap into what you don't want to say. Tap into that secret place, despite the agony, despite the personal pain, over and above the fatigue.

If you're gonna take people on a journey that deals with some pretty heavy themes, I think you best have a sense of humor, here and there.

My impulse is to create an aesthetic that's about a humanistic approach to a world and trying to create compassion for all the characters.

If I heard somebody else say, 'I worked on a movie for five years', I'd be like, 'What? How could it take that long? What were you doing?'

Rather than look at a marriage as two people morphing into one thing, you could see two individuals who are choosing to form a partnership.

I wish I was really talented in music because then I would be doing it. I felt that I could write a decent song, but it was a big struggle.

One of the most important things I've learned about acting is that you can't separate how you live your life and how you practice your art.

As far as I can tell, 1968 is a year about change, about revolution, about violence, about people turning inwards as community breaks down.

When I'm making stuff, the thing that excites me most is not the result, but the process and trying to do something I've never done before.

I think I'll try to keep working in film for a little bit. There's something still kind of magical about it, that I don't want to let go of.

I'd always wanted to do something about the Second World War, but I didn't want to do another combat film, whether it was air, land, or sea.

There's a whole, that is a whole subgenre within martial arts cinema. The supernatural martial arts movie. Particularly within Asian cinema.

Some people become dullards, but as children we are all creative. It's in the programming, the socialization, that we lose our sense of play.

What I learned from the Beastie Boys was to be independent. They set up their own world separate from the label. They built their own studio.

I would love to do something for TV... I wanna do 'Kavalier & Clay' on HBO as an eight-parter. It'll be so much better as a series, honestly.

I sort of plunged into filmmaking. I decided I'd jump off the deep end, so I started thinking about what kind of a movie I should try to make.

We're really having a problem right now in our culture. I haven't seen one movie lately in which the story and visuals have been equally good.

I'm drawn again and again to relationships between people who really, really want to connect and just can't get out of their own way to do it.

In my mind, I'm no longer daunted by the idea of a remake. In fact, I now look at it as a genre unto itself - so long as you make it your own.

Even in this world where you’re getting everything you need and having this nice life, there’s still loneliness and longing and disconnection.

If I can make one generalised statement, and generalised statements are never entirely true, nobody wants to be talked down to, kids included.

In the 10 years that I've been a professional filmmaker, the film part of the film industry is really disappearing, right in front of our eyes.

Brits are very, very expressive, whereas the Soviet and Eastern European way is much more stern, stone-faced. Vladimir Putin-esque in some way.

If you've ever had somebody try to sell you something - people who can sell, they really are not manipulating you. They are selling themselves.

We can do things that we never could before. Stop-motion lets you build tiny little worlds, and computers make that world even more believable.

Any conqueror in human history has always been ultimately someone who exists purely for the expansion of their own ego, through amounting more.

I want to make films without a single clear message, and films that are as close as possible to what it feels like to be alive. At least to me.

Working with friends isn't easy - the nature of an artistic project means it's about two strong visions colliding and a bit of mental wrestling.

In America, the word art has become like the word adultery. It's this big scarlet letter. When you say you're an artist, people are like, "Ugh."

I'd love to direct commercials on Caribbean beacheswith luscious women rubbing on suntan lotion, but all I get arethese documentary-type things.

Girls' is a huge show, as far as buzz, and magazine covers, and getting a ton of copy, and awards. And yet I don't think the viewership is huge.

There are a lot of westerns that deal with people standing up for their principles, and that is the predominant theme that has been in my films.

I'm fortunately not, like, typecast. I don't have to just do one kind of thing; I can do all kinds of things that reflect different parts of me.

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