Being a kid growing up with Kurosawa films and watching Sergio Leone movies just made me love what it could do to you, and how it could influence you - make you dream.
I realize I'm a very lucky man. I love what I do, I love films, TV and theater, and the fact that I'm able to make a living at it staggers me.
I think stop-motion has always been semi-obsolete. And stop-motion animators - people like myself - love it so much that we're always going to be looking for new ways to make our films.
I have no interest whatsoever in pursuing acting or becoming a mogul. I love writing and directing; I see those two jobs as the most critical in the making of a film.
We make the kind of movies we like to watch. I love to laugh. I love to be amazed by how beautiful it is. But I also love to be moved to tears. There's lots of heart in our films.
When you make a film for a million and a half dollars and it opens at 20 million, the next question out of everyone's mouth is, 'When's the next one, when's the next one, when's the next one?'
I'm a big fan of British cinema; I think we make some unbelievably brilliant films, but they can quite often have a dark feel.
I realized I probably wouldn't make another film that cuts through commercial and creative things like 'Godfather' or 'Apocalypse.'
It's a treat and daunting to be directing someone like Judi Dench, who's made more films than I'll ever make in my lifetime.
There is a sort of theory that you should adapt bad books because they always make more successful films.
I came to the industry with wide eyes and an open heart thinking I was going to make a few films that really meant something that I could pour myself into.
Very, very rare that you do a job knowing that the audience is desperate for you to do that job. Most films you make don't get released, is the fact.
I won't make shorthand films, because I don't want to manipulate audiences into assuming quick, manufactured truths.
When you want to make a film abroad, you need producers and people who support you. You need a team that speaks your language.
I'm a fan of making films. Whether I'm on stage or in front of a camera, one of my first loves is performing for the people. I'd like to do more acting.
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.
Normally, in a film with lots of twists and turns, half of them don't make sense; they're just there for their own sakes.
And that's another reason to make this movie: We can put plays on film now, at a relatively small cost, and they will reach an audience they would never have reached otherwise.
An artist makes a painting, and nobody bugs him or her about it. It's just you and your painting. To me, that's the way it should be with film as well.
I don't think of Storefront Hitchcock or Stop Making Sense as documentaries, I think of them more as performance films.
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.
