I manage to hide in my movies.

All studio movies are the middle of the Bell curve. The only way to do something is to do it yourself. And the only way to do that is to not take any money from anyone or take as little money as possible from anyone and that's it.

The first two movies I directed failed when I was 21 and 23 and that was the greatest thing that could have happened.

American movies are often very good at mining those great underlying myths that make films robustly travel across class age gender culture.

I do other sorts of things. I act in other people's movies. I direct operas. I write books.

The thing that's protected me creatively is that the movies have made profits.

When I was a kid I had two great guilty pleasures. One was horror movies and the other was martial arts movies.

Maybe when I stop making movies I'll understand my work better.

My normal cycle for movies is eighteen months and each part is separate.

Even in the former Soviet Union they have good copies of my movies.

I grew up watching Steven Spielberg and scary movies.

I made about 28 movies and I think about five of them were good.

Movies will end up being this esoteric art form where only singular people will put films out in a small group of theaters.

The movies I made when I was 14 or 15 I have a hard time looking at those. Those were the awkward years. I don't know if anybody can look at something they did when they were 14 and not wince.

So yes there's nothing I love more than listening to directors talk about their movies.

I love making movies but there's nothing like being in front of an audience.

I've always had this idea that I wanted movies to make people better not worse.

If I have to produce movies direct movies whatever to change the way Hollywood treats older women I'll do it. If I have to bend the rules I will. If I have to break them I will.

I love European movies and I kind of grew up on European films.

I don't know if I see myself as really an action hero but I like doing physical movies and I like doing movies where the writing is very lean.

I grew up on the crime stuff. Spillane Chandler Jim Thompson and noir movies like Fuller Orson Welles Fritz Lang. When I first showed up in New York to write comics back in the late 1970s I came with a bunch of crime stories but everybody just wanted men in tights.

I'm a spoilt brat. I thought I was just going to walk in and make movies. But I'd been my own boss for so long that all of a sudden to be facing a roomful of people who were niggling over every little scene... I just thought I'd go back and draw my comics and have a happy life.

And the VCR did the same thing: the movie industry thought nobody would ever watch movies any more.

I've never been interested in action movies. Definitely not interested in sci-fi.