But 'Memento' was so successful, such a huge cult hit, almost on the scale of a large film. If that had happened, with all the acclaim, before the next job, I'd have found it very difficult to figure out what to do next.
Like the he-man movie stars who turn out to be queer . . . or the silent-film actors whose voices sound terrible recorded--the audience only wants a limited amount of honesty. [ellipses original]
My first few films were institutional comedies, and you're on pretty safe ground when you're dealing with an institution that vast numbers of people have experienced: college, summer camp, the military, the country club.
Try driving the streets of Los Angeles without seeing a billboard depicting a film with a lead actor holding a gun. It's almost as if guns are harmless props used to bring out the cheekbones and jawline of the screen star.
I don't know if I was so much of an outsider until after I started doing films. That put me on the outside. I grew up in Texas, and I wasn't the child of industry parents, and I didn't have a lot of friends in the industry or anything like that.
Being down in Orlando, Florida, where we filmed the movie, I learned how to bass fish. Jerry Reed, who plays the villain in the movie, taught me how to bass fish.
WI played a young Helena Bonham Carter in a BBC film called 'A Dark Adapted Eye,' and I thought she was a completely spellbinding person. Totally unmoved by other people's expectations, fashions or opinions. She's probably the coolest English actress...
Usually, you lose interest in a story beyond a certain point. But with 'Highway,' there was something very subtle, yet something very influential. I intended 'Highway' to be the first film that I ever made. Didn't happen.
I was interested in theatre and media and came to Mumbai to get a job. I imagined that the film industry would be a white building with producers sitting in different rooms, and you could walk in and meet them, and they would interview you and select...
When I was younger, me and my brother got a video camera, and he used to direct and I used to act. We used to make these silly, stupid short films, which, looking back now, were probably horrible.
I came rather late to film. I've done an awful lot of theater before - before I discovered the camera, you know, seeing everything, requiring much less acting and - and much less presentation, much less projecting, more just being.
I do think 'All Is by My Side' is the type of film I'm the most happiest. You know, I'm figuring it out. I did just move to New York, so I have to pay my rent.
I'm not sure I agree with the thesis, because I think that even though something grotesque or gross has been part of film since way back, what we accept or what we can get away with on the screen is broader now.
Making films is sort of like you're pulling off a magic trick. It's sort of like an illusion. It's not real but you want it to appear real, and all kinds of things go into that, from the clothes you're wearing to the make-up, to the light.
I do remember that I was sitting in the make-up chair before the shoots for a commercial or film or other, and I thought: Sometime soon they are going to make a close-up of me and millions of people can see how many pimples I've got on my cheeks.
I really feel that acting for film and acting for the stage are two different crafts. I think that they share things in common. But I liken it to a painter switching over to photography. There are similar things - you have to be conscious of light an...
I almost choke on my popcorn when I hear film stars, who walk on red carpets as much as the rest of us do on zebra crossings, criticising youngsters who crave fame.
Knowing that the 'Sex and the City' chicks now rack up almost two centuries between them, why do some of us fuss and hiss about a bit of retouching on their forthcoming film poster?
But, you know, when I choose a film I need to believe in it and believe I can do something special with it, and after a while that means not trying to judge or analyze why I should do it. You have to follow this intuition thing, which is a mystery to...
So if I keep making mistakes on Broadway or tape or film, producing, directing or acting, I can go along and do it - so long as I'm not investing too much capital in these things.
I don't use film cameras. I don't do visual effects the same way. We don't use miniature models; it's all CG now, creating worlds in CG. It's a completely different toolset. But the rules of storytelling are the same.
