The film, even when we were making it in that budget range, which was really a coup - we got it made because we pitched it to the studio head, Joe Roth.

The thing is there have been American movies that are similar to Solaris, like Alien had a lot of things that are similar, although it's also got the horror element.

Coppola has problems getting financing, so why should I not have problems getting financing.

After living in LA for 8 years, I sort of wanted a change, but there's not much production in New York, which is where I primarily live, so I just sort of drifted over to London.

I think movies are good for getting into dream states or exploring weird alternate states of thinking.

I actually did use to sell shoes.

I really love sort of classical cinema where people were telling stories with very little dialogue, and people were using the camera in a really interesting way.

Like I said about Freaked, people tend to find these films, and I think that in the end the cool thing about a movie is that it can be sort of burnt temporarily, but then it's burnt into the fabric of your culture.

I get very driven by certain themes and ideas.

The thing about movies these days is that the commerce end of it is so inflated and financiers are just expecting this enormous return on their investment.

It's hard for a hit to be bad for your career.

They're innocent movies, and they're fun movies and there were no pretensions about 'em.

Certain remakes are great. Carpenter's The Thing is better than the original.

The film, even when we were making it in that budget range, which was really a coup - we got it made because we pitched it to the studio head, Joe Roth.

I'm not trying to be some kind of underground renegade.

I think filmmakers want their movies to be seen.

I'm not saying it isn't frustrating that my films haven't gotten a bigger release, but I'm really happy with them and if you just keep cranking and eventually, if you have a certain sensibility, some of your movies will hit and some just won't.

I just like movies that somehow expose the world in a way that's different than you imagine it.

The trick of making movies in this culture is how to not give up everything that makes them worthwhile in order to get them made - and that's a tricky balance.

That's kind of the weird thing that M. Night Shyamalan has sort of unleashed upon the world is this need for every movie to have these ridiculous endings.

I direct a lot of TV commercials and music videos.

My favorite favorites are people like Bunuel, Fellini and Charlie Chaplin.

I'm one of the few people who really like Eyes Wide Shut.

I'm really influenced by so many different things.

With Fever, the film was so made for the screen, and there's so much surround sound that was done for the film - enormous detail paid to that. I wasn't thinking video, because I didn't know how it was going to turn out.

Same thing, like my commercials are often times really funny because I tend to find 30 seconds is a really good amount of time to tell a joke.

But it is funny, because I saw Unbreakable recently and it's a strange movie, I didn't mind it, and it's got some interesting things going on.

Hitchcock had to fight to the death to make his movies.

I take a lot from everywhere. I take from music, architecture, novels, and plays. Anywhere that hits you.

Certain remakes are great. Carpenters the thing is better than the original.

My best film composing experience was with Elia Kazan.

I was lucky enough to occasionally break out of that racist situation that prevails in the Hollywood film production community. But it was racist then and it will always be that way. It will never be otherwise.

'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.

Luck is everything... My good luck in life was to be a really frightened person. I'm fortunate to be a coward, to have a low threshold of fear, because a hero couldn't make a good suspense film.

I still feel that a movie has to attempt to say something - even if it fails miserably. But I've sort of given up on believing that I'm going to change the world with every film I choose to act in.

It's the difficulty we had with Mr. Bean, actually, when it went from TV to film. You certainly discover that you need to explain more about a character.

To make a documentary is one thing, to make a feature film is quite another.

I mean when the play was on in New York I was starting to get film offers coming through, and since the film's come out I get offered more than I used to, but it happens incrementally.

I think it would be very boring dramatically to have a film where everybody was a lawyer or doctor and had no faults. To me, the most important thing is to be truthful.

I like doing them and they're ridiculous and the actors can improvise a lot, and they don't have to be really realistic characters that hit a very specific tone as in a feature film. They're really fun, I want to make more of them definitely.

One of the most interesting aspects of the film project was collaborating with so many people - directors, filmmakers, and writers - over a five-year period. I learned that there are two components to this.

The best thing I can think of would be to create a union between something as beautiful and powerful and wonderful as Hollywood films and a criticism of the status quo. That's my dream, to make such a German film.

If he didn't fall in love he would have never come back near the end of the film. Because, what man is going to dishonor himself so that he comes back in front of the man that took a woman away from him... and warns her to save her life?

Robert Altman's Nashville is my all-time favorite film because it covers all the bases - it's original, moving, and has something to say, but also funny and incredibly entertaining.

I never see a novel as a film while I'm writing it. Mostly because novels and films are so different, and I'm such an internal novelist.

I have a movie coming out called Spun, which will be at the Toronto Film Fest.

Well ironically my last three roles have all been a mother. One was a Canadian film where the baby was taken away because she is a drug addict, in Irish Jam I play a mother to a four year old. I think in the future I'll be able to handle the role with a lot more depth.

And when you see it the first time you put the film together, the roughest cut, is when you want to go home and open up your veins and get in a warm tub and just go away. And then it gradually, maybe, works its way back, somewhere toward that spot you were at before.

A good film script should be able to do completely without dialogue.