I got to work with Dustin Hoffman on a film called 'Billy Bathgate.' I got to work with Meryl Streep and Goldie Hawn and Bob Zemeckis on 'Death Becomes Her.' There are still a few actors out there that I would like to work with.

I would define independent film as a movie that is not financed by any of the smaller film companies. Because then, those are movies that in all likelihood are made without stars. And then they have to rely just on the material.

I feel like each time I do something I want it to be more and more recognizable that it's me so, by the time I do a film, my films will be as recognizable as someone like David Lynch or someone who's got their own thing going on.

I'm interested in seeing films that confront me with new things, with films that make me question myself, with films that help me to reflect on subjects that I hadn't thought about before, films that help me progress and advance.

I remember, during an ad shoot, Anurag said to me that you are doing my film, and I was wondering do we really get films so easily. I thought you have to struggle and all. But he kept his word and offered me 'Gangs Of Wasseypur.'

Every few years when it's been another five years that have passed and I haven't made a film and the depression starts taking over totally, I allow myself to do a commercial. And then I feel really dirty and get to work promptly.

If you are truly involved in a film and if you are going to do any kind of good work, you have to have that full commitment to the work. If you aren't willing to do that, or if that is not in your nature, I say steer clear of it.

Sometimes we postpone releases because of another big film or some other reasons. In the end, the big film, too, postpones, and the impact is on the small films. So once you decide on a release date, you have to go ahead with it.

David Lynch's 'Fire Walk With Me' has a scene in it that scared me so bad that I don't remember it. I blocked the memory out - repeatedly! I've seen the film two or three times, and I can never remember what it is that scares me.

I've been told that I'm a very different person on the set than I am in postproduction when the movie's over and I'm editing, in that I get so wound up in the film that I become selfless to the point where I lose too much weight.

Instead of saying, ah, I don't have the money, just embrace it and do what we can do. And the scenes that we film and the characterizations in the scenes can come out interesting. And I really feel good about that, going into it.

I've been lucky because Hollywood can be harsh and try to pigeonhole you. I've done TV, films, and comedy, done it all... I think I'm spread out evenly among the film community. I've been lucky and keep working with great actors.

Seeing what the film becomes, out of your hands - you never know, you know? I'm always rather anxious. It's not like in theater when you are more in control. You're more - not a puppet, but you don't control it. You don't own it.

Personally, I can't stand violence. In any standard American mainstream movie, there's 20 times more violence than in any one of my films, so I don't know why those directors aren't asked why they're such specialists for violence.

Norway is a small country, about half the size of Sweden, but it has a very good film climate because they have municipal cinemas, so even in the smallest towns you have a cinema that shows art house films from all over the world.

Fame can be very dangerous, because you can start to enjoy that part of it. And that's not the good part of what I do for a living. The good part is the making of films. The unpleasant part is the fame part, if you're not careful.

The fashion world is much more ephemeral than the film industry and moves at a faster pace, and it's got even more frenetic since the Nineties; more paparazzi hanging about and it seems to me there are even more fashion magazines.

Your internal dialogue has got to be different from what you say. And, you know, in film, hopefully that registers and speaks volumes. It's always the unspoken word and what's happening behind someone's eyes that makes it so rich.

Given the unprecedented ignorance of the Bible in contemporary America, it is likely that more young Americans will only know the Noah of 'Noah.' We can only hope that the film offers even a fraction of the wisdom of the original.

In spite of being professionally gregarious, in my nonpaid hours I'm a bit of a hermit. After being around a crew of fifty people for twelve hours a day on a film set, I really like my alone time, and as always, I abhor small talk.

I've grown up in the film industry and I've been watching them, analyzing them, laughing at them, totally understanding them and getting their point of view, and, at times, taking up for them. So I'm part of it and it's part of me.

I've always liked clothes. I usually work very closely with the costume designer when I work on films, picking the fabrics and the clothes. And colors convey feelings. I like swatches and things like that. It makes me feel at home.

Every black film feels like it's Tyler Perry, and that just needs to stop. But people seem to slowly be looking for what else is out there - 'Is there something else besides this type of humor?' 'I'm tired of seeing men in dresses.'

There are things that you could do with film that you could never do with HD. There's a warmth and an organic quality - almost a handmade quality - that goes into film. Film will always have a bit more of a humanistic feeling to it.

Back home, I find small towns very peaceful. When my father and uncle were still in the film business, we had a tradition of travelling to the temple town of Srisailam to screen every film before its release. I still go there often.

I was fortunate to write pretty much a year out of film school and start making movies in the Hollywood studio system. But with each progressive film it became more frustrating not being able to speak and say things I wanted to say.

This film [Teknolust] in particular, showing the way in which having a sexual dialogue with someone can be something developing and changeable and maybe uncomfortable and complicated. Just complicated and human, no more and no less.

I never ever see a film of mine after I release it to the public. I see it when I shoot it in my dailies and while I'm editing it, re-editing it and reshooting it and all that. By the time it's finished I never want to see it again.

There are lots of great movies coming out of the U.S. but it's not something I've ever really been interested in. They're great films but I much prefer the smaller independent films, which are more thought provoking and experimental.

The quality and success of Disney was actually bad for us animators because everyone on the planet thought that animation was only for kids and only in a certain domain. The big film festivals never thought much about animated films.

At the end of the day, when I kick back with some barbecue and a CokeZero in front of a blockbuster film playing within the convenience of my fully air-conditioned house, I'll say a small prayer thanking God for the American culture.

I had great inspiration from a Japanese composer named Toru Takemitsu. He wrote over 90 film scores and a lot of concert music, a lot of classical music, and he gave me a lot of inspiration, as well as composers from other countries.

I have a hard time articulating the emotional experience of working on a film. Even when I have meetings on films or discussing them with directors, I find that's my biggest challenge. Different words mean different things to people.

It's high time the film industry stopped treating fair skin as a parameter of beauty. You could be the fairest of them all, but if you have a wicked soul, you aren't beautiful at all. So, skin colour doesn't define a person's beauty.

We can't keep thinking in a limited way about what cinema is. We still don't know what cinema is. Maybe cinema could only really apply to the past or the first 100 years, when people actually went to a theater to see a film, you see?

When I was minister of sport in Brazil, I tried to bring in a law that would make the chairmen of clubs reveal their accounts like other businesses. It was turned down, but I think it is an important story that will make a good film.

I am defined also by Woody Allen’s films and Martin Scorsese and Jim Jarmusch and Julian Schnabel or Almodóvar, or by Guillermo del Toro, Iñárritu, Cuarón. Even if we haven’t worked with them, we are all defined by their filmography.

I adore book-to-film adaptations when they're done well, and I'm more lenient than many readers when it comes to what counts as 'done well.' For me, the most important thing is that the film maintains the spirit of the original book.

Look at the Coen brothers. All their minor characters are as interesting as their protagonists. If the smaller characters are well-written, the whole world of the film becomes enriched. It's not the size of the thing, but the detail.

I was offered some film roles, and I did not do them. It would have been interesting, but I have no regrets. I am where I am; I accept and embrace the mistakes because they're character-building and they build perspective and talent.

Armstrong was the equivalent of Russia's Snowden. He has this explosive game-changing, sport-changing, world-changing evidence that he wants to bring forward, and essentially me and my film team are going to facilitate him doing that.

I think Magnolia is one of the best films I've ever seen and I can say that straight and out and anybody that disagrees with me I'll fight you to the death. I just think it is one of the greatest films I've ever been in and ever seen.

For me, personally, the most interesting music comes from the popular sector - from film and pop music - since contemporary classical music got stuck and went into directions where it lost a lot of the public by over-intellectualizing.

Having had that experience... I think, what modern culture wants to see is the relationship with the woman. I don't think you can tell a story on film nowadays where the woman simply is there for the man when he decides to settle down.

In the film world, we can all be heroes. In the real world, where heroism can cost you your life or the life of the ones you love, people aren't so willing to make those sacrifices. When they do, they are set apart from the rest of us.

When my films don't work it's usually because I tried some very experimental idea. I tried new ideas and they just didn't work, as opposed to trying to do something conventional and having it be so conventional nobody wanted to see it.

It says something about the curious nature of film, that someone can be so alive on screen, when we're all too aware that they've passed. it underscores how we're mortal, and films are immortal (commenting on the death of Heath Ledger)

I have lately obtained the opinion of a number of Chief Constables, who declare with almost complete unanimity that the recent great increase in juvenile delinquency is, to a considerable extent, due to demoralising cinematograph films.

I think we have the same goals in mind. We are not planning on just all of a sudden taking a film and separating. Hopefully one day she can direct me in something, or I will direct her. Or we'll produce a movie under our company's name.

The reason why I always wanted to make an American film was because of the Western genre. It is something that I would very much like to make in the future, because it's very uniquely American, and I can't make a Western film in Korean.

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