There is a sense of emptiness when you finish any film because you're empty and you can't give anything more to it anymore.
As a matter of principle, I always come to a film like a blank slate, I don't learn my lines in advance. With this approach, I feel clean.
In films, the fact that you can always do a scene again takes a load off your mind, enabling you to strive for perfection, which I always wanted.
On 'Platoon' I was offered in 1984 a very tiny part that Ivan Kane would go on to play. Then the financing fell out, and the film was scuttled for two years.
I'm more likely to lose my temper on a film set than almost anywhere. Often the level of idiocy is so exalted that it's impossible to comprehend.
People think that the directors direct actors. No. Really, what the director's doing is directing the audience's eye through the film.
I think everybody's had that feeling of sitting in a theater, in a dark room, with other strangers, watching a very powerful film, and they felt that feeling of transformation.
Cocteau is someone who has made such a profound impression on me that there's no doubt he's influenced every one of my films.
And the fact that I see so many films really seems to amaze certain people.
The only reason I ever do an independent film is that I believe in it, and I think it has something special to offer. I'm certainly not doing it to be a millionaire.
When I'm shooting, really the audience I'm thinking the hardest about is that first test screening audience who I want to like the film and that first opening weekend audience.
Sometimes you learn more from films that aren't terribly successful and, indeed, sometimes you learn more from real disasters than you do from the ones that succeed.
You finish a project and start looking for something that might interest you. A lot of the films I've made are a reaction to something I've done right before.
I even agree with the new digital ways of filmmaking, where you don't even have physical film in the camera, but to be honest, I wouldn't want to use it.
In my first film, Five Corners, I played a very scary, violent crazed character, and it exposed me to a lot of directors.
I'm always aiming for some magic in films if I can find a mystical quality either in a song or in a moment or a character's intention.
I'd like to do a piece of Shakespeare. Any upcoming Shakespeare film. Just a bit to say I did a classic.
Films must all have the same structure. All of this to guarantee box office bonanza, which of course it never does, but that's another discussion entirely.
Between Twitter and Facebook, early word of mouth for a film can destroy it immediately or take something you've never heard of and make it a huge hit.
Let's say there are things about 'G.I. Joe' that you specifically expect and some things that need to be in the film at certain points, whether it be relationships or certain costume aspects.
You want to know if anyone's going to go see your film. You shouldn't worry about it or get hung up on it. So yea, you kind of monitor it.
