I was always told that I'd have to do a movie with a white guy in order to get the money. That's the way it was. That made me feel that I should have chosen some other profession, so I could have gotten my just deserts.
For the most part, studio movies have huge budgets. They don't do anything under 30 to 40 million. When you have that much money at stake, you have so many people breathing down your neck.
I do genre films because I like them or because I need the money. I make a star's salary when I do horror because I can still open a movie in Italy or Spain or Germany.
I think the biggest issue for legacy media - both TV and film - is that it just costs too much money to develop a TV series or movie. And most of them don't work. Then the one that works has to pay for the rest.
I do read movie blogs. I think what's really interesting - Probably everyone says this, but what's interesting is it, it takes away the power, from the newspaper magnates, so be it Murdoch or whatever. I mean, it's like the people taking it back. Isn...
But it's much more exciting to make Die Hard. One of the reasons that I think that movie is so successful is it deals with those very important blue-collar relationship themes. But it's more visually beautiful to show things blowing up. It just gives...
He's a legend and I respect his work, so I went down and paid my respects when Charlton was on the set. He was nice but I think he lied a little. He said it was an honour to be in a movie with me, but I don't believe it.
If you publish a scientific paper it is very hard to start a nationwide debate about something. If you do this in a movie, you can start a debate. We like to create a bridge between those two worlds - film and science.
It's always more interesting to make a movie about what is relevant in your society. What's the political global backdrop? What are our threats? What are we vulnerable to? Because that's what an audience vibes on - that is what people are interested ...
When you say that I can go and make a movie, I feel like I'm one of the most fortunate men. I feel myself to be a fortunate man that I found something to do that I really love.
I love making stuff. There's a joy in having the first molecule of an idea, then testing it in front of audiences at secret shows that people only know about the day before. I videotape those, study them, enjoy being in the character and figuring out...
I have a particular love of an actor that I did work with, oddly, in 'Donnie Brasco,' who has since become a wonderful talent: Paul Giamatti. I would love to do a whole movie with Paul Giamatti.
I focus on the elements of a movie that are meant to invisibly affect me as a viewer. The edges. As an author, I'm aware of how the subconscious things can pluck at a reader's emotions, and I love it when filmmakers do the same.
I was always into music, but I wanted to do film when I was kid. I remember seeing big movies and wanting to do them. Then I was lucky enough to act in some of them, and I fell in love with it.
I want to move people, stir something within them that makes them feel. That's what a movie should do and an actor should do, make you feel something. I think that's why people love films so much.
I love the intimacy and the passion and the danger that go into independent filmmaking. Because it comes out of a creative necessity. It comes from people who really want to make a movie and want to make a difference and want to grab an audience by t...
The worst thing you can do to a filmmaker is to walk out of his film and go, 'That was a nice movie.' But if you can cause people to walk out and then argue about the film on the sidewalk... I think we're all seeking dissension, and we love to affect...
I was lucky that one of my first movies, 'One Million Years B.C.' was made in Europe by a British company. The Brits, and a lot of the rest of Europe, seemed to really love exotic women. The fact that I was American and exotic just made me more appea...
I found, through the process of doing 'The Perks of Being a Wallflower,' that I really love directing movies and I love writing books and so this will become the centerpiece of my career for the next ten or twenty years. Doing these adaptations.
I like wearing beautiful clothes, but that does not translate into my work. People don't like to see me as a glam doll in my movies. My audience and the media love me with two different perceptions. It's a strange, crazy situation.
I'm definitely a romantic comedy dude because I'm a big romantic at heart. I'm a softy, so it's always nice to watch movies that make you think that love at first sight is actually possible.