In independent film you tend to have stories that involve more of a community, and the smaller characters are important to the story.
My first job was an AFI short film, 'Chasing Daylight,' when I was 11, and I made a couple of commercials that never aired.
It's bizarre, that feeling as an actor, at being in the mecca of the film world and seeing billboards for a TV show that you're in pretty much everywhere.
I have no control over a film. I don't know what will be left on the cutting floor.
Watching a film should feel like you just tore a hole out of the air and the void caught fire.
There's never really been a tradition of making films about Jewish themes or using Judaism as a constant.
I don't want anyone to expect anything from any of my films; I just want them to see it and then tell me what they think.
If I'm in theatre, cinema doesn't even cross my mind. Similarly when I'm making a film, theatre doesn't cross my mind.
I'm really proud of 'Cars.' 'Cars,' when it first came out, got probably the most mediocre reviews of a Pixar film.
In animation, there's this exhilarating moment of discovery when you see the film and you say, Oh THAT'S what I was doing.
Life goes on pretty much the same way. I've been working on a couple of films on the side. You may see some more. You may even see another television show.
If you take a really good book, then the potential is for a really good film. But you've got to get it right.
'Batman' took 10 months to film, and by the time I stopped working on it, it took a long time before my English accent came out again. I was actually having to try for it.
A lot of Hollywood films tend to be bloated, bombastic, loud. At the same time, I do like the infrastructure of making a blockbuster; it's like having a big train set.
'Troll 2' is one of the rare sequels where you don't have to waste time watching the first one, since the films have absolutely nothing to do with one another.
Every time you say yes to a film there's a certain percentage of your yes that has to do with the director, a certain percentage to do with the story, a certain percentage with the character, the location, etc.
I've been directing for 25 years almost, and I've only directed nine films in that time because I like to be careful.
Every time you make a film, you create a world. You make decisions about sets and costumes, and you create a universe connected to reality, but not reality itself.
I think Ingmar Bergman, Francoise Truffaut - all these people created images in my mind, beautiful pictures, I loved what was known at that time as the foreign film.
Ultimately, the film industry has always pushed out its biggies, and I don't have a problem with that. I just wish that we'd spend more time nurturing the smaller ones.
I get bored with the same old film coming out every weekend. It feels like it's the same story all the time, and the same visuals, and the characters' dilemmas are remarkably similar.
