I spent years working in low-budget horror films. When you've done 'Cannibal Women in the Avocado Jungle of Death,' you can handle anything!

There is an art to casting. And I hope we will see more ensemble films. I don't like star-led films, it's much better to have more stars in one film so that the audience can see them working together.

In all the horror films that I have done, all of those women were strong women. I don't feel I ever played the victim, although I was always in jeopardy.

I've driven people mad on films that I've made - I want more takes; I want to try new lines. Then I want to interfere in the editing process, and I want to interfere in the advertising process - everything, everything. Pretty much Barbra Streisand in trousers, I am!

There was a phase in my career in my late 20s and 30s when I was doing strange, arty-farty Euro films that were, you could tell, never had much chance of any release anywhere in the world.

For a few years, I thought I was putting show business behind me. I was busy doing other things in life, particularly with politics. I was not out looking for films, really. I lost interest.

I've certainly had a bad attitude to my job on many occasions. Not since 'Four Weddings and a Funeral'. I've been rather a good boy and really given it everything when I've accepted a part since then, because I've been given much better parts in films.

I don't hate L.A., but I'm nervous about becoming one of those people who has a ferocious interest in how films did at the box office that weekend and, you know, would want to meet for egg-white omelets in the morning.

I'm quite proud of some of the films I've done, but less for the acting than for the fact that they're unpretentious and entertaining. I'm proud of having made unpretentious choices.

Japanese women have always loved my films, even when no one else did. Ever since I made 'Maurice' in the 1980s, I've been getting hundreds of letter from Japanese girls. They definitely have a special place in my heart.

This guy Simon Helberg, who's in 'Florence Foster Jenkins,' I might have been vaguely patronizing to him because he hadn't done films before. Gradually, you realize, not only is the guy a much bigger star than me, he's maybe the richest man I've ever met.

I'd like to believe that the people that have supported me in my work or identified with me in films the people that feel they know me they do and they don't have misconceptions - they understand. I believe that.

Most films seem to be about a man and a women falling in love at some point and once you pass forty-five it's almost disgusting to fall in love.

Even if there are a lot women in films there are few who are lesbians that people know about.

And if there was one title that could be applied to all my films it would be 'Civil War' - not civil war in the way we know it but the daily war that goes on between us all.

With Vietnam the Iraq War so many American films about war are almost always from the American point of view. You almost never have a Middle Eastern character by name with a story.

Well first of all making films is a collaborative process. You need people. You need people you trust and love and who are your friends. People you can work with.

And as I've gotten deeper into the process of making films and television and such I think I have more trust in the fact that you really never know what you're going to find after the twenty-fifth take.

Everybody thinks making films back to back is a big deal but they did it all the time in the old days.

I really liked 'Starter For Ten' because I grew up watching 1980s teen films like 'St. Elmo's Fire' and 'The Breakfast Club' and I've always wanted to play the underdog lead hero in a 1980s-inspired film.

Well in our industry it's that the movies cost so much money to make they have to appeal to a broad audience. And I think that's part of what will loosen up in the future as technology makes it cheaper you'll be able to make films for a more selective audience. I think people will be able to make more personal movies.

For behaviorist films that's been much more useful - the change of technology - but for my kind of films doing them on film is much better because it's more beautiful.

You can get digital technology that almost is film quality and go make little films and do everything you can to find a little understanding of your own voice and it will grow - Don't take no for an answer - Take every opportunity you can to do something.

All this technology has not changed the way NFL Films does business and our process. Yes with one touch of a button now you reach millions of people but it is still the same approach that my father and I started out with.