I learned that you can make a sci-fi film that is satisfying overseas. European people have everything in check. I'd make every sci-fi film in Europe. They only work 14 hours a day. After that, it's overtime.
There's good art and there's bad art. A lot of action films are bad art, but Paul Greengrass showed us with the Bourne films that it's possible to make an action film with a political, social conscience.
I became a film director, but I wasn't successful with my first couple of films, so I had to turn to becoming a film critic to make a living.
I was making films when I was about 12 years old - Super-8 films.
People call me a movie star. If you're in the business, a movie star is someone who can make a film bankable. My name and $6 million will make a $6 million movie. I'm a working actor. Because I started late, I had a very short run as a leading man, a...
When you're making a film, you don't really have time to consider what the whole of your film is. And then, when you're releasing your film and promoting your film, you're looking at it in a different way. Then, as you move away from it, you start to...
I tell people if I want to make a film I just go make it so you can make yours.
You have to want to make a film for other reasons - to say something, to tell a story, to show somebody's fate - but you can't want to make a film simply for the sake of it.
Other writers, producers, and directors of low-budget films would often put down the film they were making, saying it was just something to make money with. I never felt that. If I took the assignment, I'd give it my best shot.
I did not make this a long film for its own sake. I wanted to make an entertaining film and offer it out there for those who want to see it. If word of mouth suggests there is an audience out there, hopefully their cinema will show it.
I think that people who make films and think they're changing the world are sorely mistaken. If that really is your goal, there are far better ways to do it. I'm making politically observant films for audiences.
I want to make a film that is commercially successful because that means that the larger cinema-going audience around the world like the movie, which is my goal. That's my job, to make films that people respond to.
You see I don't like to be really too commercial about things but in this business you've just got to be commercial otherwise the films don't make money and you don't make films and as a long as a commodity is selling it's silly to kill it dead.
I think films have to reach people and really grab them. That's what I hope to do when I make a film - to get under your skin and really make you think about something, and have a transporting time that takes you somewhere.
If it helps me in the way that if this movie is successful, I get to make more films, great, and the more films that I make and the more interest that I'm allowed to cover, the better for me and the better, hopefully, for the people who like to watch...
The things that I've done that have totally been remembered, they've always started with the same kind of engine, they've always started with someone saying 'I have to make this film - I'm going to make this film whatever the odds'.
I wanted to make a film about stupid people that was very vulgar and deeply stupid. From that moment on I can hardly be reproached for making a film that is about stupid people.
What has always been at the heart of film making was the value of a script. It was really the writer who could make or break a film. But as we all know, the writer has always been at the bottom of the creative heap.
'Mafiosa' was written by Veronica Russo. It's her first time making a film, and I'm really proud of her because this woman has a full-time job, and she decided one day, 'You know, I want to write a film, and I want to make it.'
You're more constrained when you're wealthy. Or when you're making a bigger film and people complain about no budgets; but having a small amount of money to make a film means you're at your absolute freest to express yourself as an artist.
I often wonder when I make a film - I'm thinking of making a film of the Buddha - and I often wonder: If Buddha had all the elements that are given to a director - if he had music, if he had visuals, if he had a video camera - would we get Buddhism b...
