A lot of people of my Ulster Protestant background would have been very suspicious of the notion of a film about Bloody Sunday. Our fear would have been that it would be terribly anti-Britain and anti-soldiers: a piece of nationalist propaganda.
I think that my vampires in general were influenced by my being allowed to watch the Hammer vampire films. Vampire Circus, also shown as Circus of Fear, was one of those movies.
Anytime you cast a movie and you need someone famous in the lead part, you're a prisoner of whoever happens to be famous in the six-month window in which you're trying to get a film financed.
Of course, Hollywood is still making some excellent pictures which reflect the great artistry that made Hollywood famous throughout the world, but these films are exceptions, judging from box office returns and press reviews.
I studied Hitchcock a little bit at University and knew the famous story about the Birds - that he'd tortured Tippi for a day using real birds. I had no idea that it was a five-day onslaught and that it was the tip of an iceberg that carried on throu...
Tyler Perry's brand is faith, family and this whole thing that I've built, while my company, 34th Street Films, is like Disney's Touchstone. We can do anything. People don't know what to expect from me yet.
The future of Arab films is absolutely up to Arabs and no one else. They've got the equipment, they've got the will, they've got the talent, now they just need a little bit of history behind them and a bit of cultural relaxation.
I think 'Saturday Night Live', starting in the 1970s, really gave women an outlet to be funny. A lot of those women went on to have film careers, from Kristen Wiig now to Tina Fey and Gilda Radner.
I like the hot-cold, the sugar-salt, being able to play over-the-top and dramatic things - in the same film. Just as in my life, I can be very funny and at other times almost extinguished.
I make these little films. I'm just a working person. I just study people a little bit more. It's more sociological, and it's funny anyway - not that serious. It's not like false humility. I just take it for what it is.
I used to like Barbra Streisand films. It was 'Funny Girl' that really turned me on, in a sense, to acting. I remember it specifically being a rainy Saturday afternoon. I couldn't play football, so I stayed in, and I watched 'Funny Girl.'
The truth is often terrifying, which I think is one of the motifs of Larry and Andrew's cinema. The cost of knowledge is an important theme. In the second and third films, they explore the consequences of Neo's choice to know the truth. It's a beauti...
I've made some films for the military that are teaching things like cultural awareness and leadership issues, that sort of stuff. And try to, in essence, look at what training they're doing and say, 'This is how you can improve the training from a hu...
I'm not particularly a career-oriented guy. I'm lucky. I can make really interesting films much of the time with interesting people yet be anonymous, have a private life. But, I'd like to have the choice of the better roles.
Previously the same Polish audiences would have been pressured into seeing cinema made for adults, films made by us about those spheres of life that were significant for us and which should be significant for our society.
I think escapism is very important, certainly in my life. I love nothing more than escaping into the world of a film or a novel. To be involved in creating that for other people is a privilege.
'The Butler' has virtually nothing in common with its source material, the life of White House butler Gene Allen, except for the fact that the main character of the film and Allen were both black butlers in the White House.
I still have to say that I did 'Dirty Pretty Things' 11 years ago. That was a very sudden shift in my life and my relationship to my work, and it didn't feel it was impossible to make a film like that.
'Bagdad Cafe' was a film that changed many, many people's lives... how they saw themselves and how they looked at their life situation. I thought I made a little movie. All the mail that I get is about how it changed lives, and that's wonderful.
I am interested in costume. Clothes in your daily life are important: your choices say something about you, even if what they're saying is about non-choice. And what you wear in a film is crucial.
I love sports. Anytime I can combine sports with a film I'm a happy guy. It's such a natural fit, because sports always seems to be a metaphor for life. Always, always, always.
