'Night Watch' itself is a very Russian movie. It's impossible to imagine this kind of movie somewhere else: a movie with a depressing ending, a lot of inexplicable storylines, strange characters. It's a Russian reflection of American film culture.
I enjoy doing martial arts films, but I like the straight stuff, too. I'd like to go back and do some Shakespeare, and maybe knock out a play or two. It's all about keeping balance.
It's about the characters, it's about the film, it's about the process of making stunning visuals and a huge, epic movie. It doesn't matter if my head was covered in a black plastic bag and I was bouncing around in a space hopper: That's the villain ...
I think I'll always be a better playwright than a pundit, but I believe that writers should be public intellectuals and that theater, even more than film, is a place of public debate.
I just get focused on whatever is in front of me. When I was filming Crossroads, it had all my focus. Now I'm all focused on finishing my recording so I can get that out. It's just day by day.
I was honestly a cartoon kid. I loved cartoons. That was more my dream than anything else. But now, it's the films of people like John Cassavetes and Gena Rowlands. Those are the kinds of characters I want to play, and that's the kind of filmmaking I...
The deal is that you can do it, you don't really owe me anything, but at the end of it, I own the film. Then I can actually go out and reprint or not reprint if it I want.
As a producer you have creative control, and that's what is so exciting about it. At the end of the day, if you have made a film it's totally your responsibility, and if it works it's your responsibility and if it doesn't it's also your responsibilit...
I don't feel the obligation to have a big explosion in the first 20 seconds so the audience doesn't turn on another channel. We are trying to make something that looks like a feature film that was bought for television and I think we are succeeding.
It's pretty easy to make a film in China. A few years ago I just walked into the office and let them know I wanted to make a movie called 'Red Cliff' and they were so excited. They said, 'Let's do it!' It's that simple.
I'm going to insult a whole industry here, but it seems like TV is for people who can't do film. I'm not talking about actresses; I'm talking about lighting people. Lighting on TV is just so... it's sinful, it really is.
When James Cameron brought me the script, which I developed with both Cameron and Jay Cocks, I wanted to make it a thriller, an action film, but with a conscience, and I found that it had elements of social realism.
I did not see myself as a leading lady. I thought I was really funny-looking and I would never be the lead, and I certainly would never do film or television. I wanted to do theater. I wanted to be the grand dame of the American stage.
It was 1953, and I was still at school. I'd borrowed a silent French film from the library for my 9.5mm projector. It was by Jean Epstein, and it was awful. So I rang the library and asked if they had anything else. They said they had 'Napoleon Bonap...
If you swap it about, do television, theatre, film, you can go on surprising yourself. The problem is you get employed to do something you've already done. They want something from that sheep pen of performances they've seen you do.
A lot of guys try to mingle with me because of who I am. If I encounter a guy with a clean heart, I will go by my instincts. I guess my man won't be from the film industry.
Salman Khan did not help me get movie offers. What rubbish! Will any producer take a risk of millions of rupees at the instance of any person? Everyone knows that the film industry is highly competitive, and one gets a job on one's talent only and no...
I always ask myself one question: what is human? What does it mean to be human? Maybe people will consider my new films brutal again. But this violence is just a reflection of what they really are, of what is in each one of us to certain degree.
You're a professional. You don't need for me to break a film down for you. If you want to stop the guy you're playing, they pay you millions of dollars. You get you a TV and break the player down yourself.
My friend once sculpted me a bust of Admiral Ackbar from 'Star Wars.' He's my favourite character in the films after Han Solo. He's that goldfish-type alien in the white costume. 'It's a trap!' I'm a big geek.
Maybe because I didn't have a huge film career right off the bat, I've been able to create something different, which is so important to me. That's myself, my idea of who I am.
