The interesting thing about movies, it's not always - y'know, you have to have structure etc and all those things, but an audience responds, in many ways, we walk away and certain things stay in our heads that are memorable.

When I began to think about the head of the family, the storyteller, the rise of television which became the new storyteller, the break-up of the American family as an idea and then Avalon came.

You have a movie and it proves itself and then certain things happen.

Some actors are supposed to be very difficult, but I've not found that to be the situation.

I never really wanted to be an actor. And that was the beginning of it, I began to write things down and eventually became a writer on a television show.

The interesting thing about movies, it's not always - y'know, you have to have structure etc and all those things, but an audience responds, in many ways, we walk away and certain things stay in our heads that are memorable.

It's finding those nonsensical pieces of conversation that we all do all the time. We do all the time. When we're talking on the telephone, there are arguments with people who agree when they both think that they disagree.

First of all, just to get Diner made would have been an achievement in that I got a chance to direct.

I'm thinking, this is Robert Redford. You know, he's won an Academy Award, he's talking to me about directing a movie he's in. So you just think that it's Hollywood stuff or whatever.

A lot of time mistakes are very interesting - you look for the behaviour that's not the one you expect.

Apparently nobody really read it, it was a cheap movie, it fit their schedule in terms of things so fine, let the guy make that high school comedy. I used to work with Mel Brooks so they figured oh it's going to be one of those really silly movies and that's how it got made.

It's those moments, those odd moments that you look for and sometimes by creating this kind of loose atmosphere you find those little moments that somehow mean a lot to an audience when they really register right.

I worked at a local television station and I got a chance to direct and do all those things - worked kiddie shows, Ranger House show with the hand puppets and things like that.

Craig Nelson who is an actor and is in a show called Coach in the United States. We began to do some improvisational stuff and we used to get laughs and things.

I got involved with an acting school and studied for a couple years. They used to have improv exercises that you would work on and you would do improvs.

Well it was sent to me, well because almost everything that is written in Baltimore is sent to me. And David Simon, who was a writer for the Baltimore Sun, spent one year following the homicide squad in Baltimore and he chronicled that period of time.

All I try to do is create an atmosphere that seems comfortable enough, that it removes tension and everyone feels free. If they feel free then behaviour happens, small moments happen and that's what ultimately works the best for me.

I got a chance to work with Mel Brooks on two of his films: Silent Movie and High Anxiety.

They're intimidating the networks and levying these fines, so the networks are not sure of what they can or can't do.

We're gonna try and bring on all the different aspects of horror movie making and bring on guests and show all these old '50's B movies. Not the real corny ones, the real cool ones.

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.

My mom took me to see Carnal Knowledge and The Wild Bunch and all these kind of movies when I was a kid.

Awards were made in Hollywood, in whatever the time it was created. They're to promote each other's movies. You give me an award, I give you an award and people will believe that we are great movies and they'll go to see them. It's still the same.

In a theater, the part is mine and I can control it as I want to. In the movies, I don't have direct contact, and I am fighting technical machinery.

I couldn't be happier about being a part of 'Hunger Games' and to play Katniss. I have a huge responsibility to the fans of this incredible book and I don't take it lightly. I will give everything I have to these movies and to this role to make it worthy of Suzanne Collins' masterpiece.

I enjoy about 1 out of 100 movies, it's about the same proportion to books published that I care to read.

Sure, 'Twilight' is really huge right now and everybody's freaking out over it, but it will go away soon and I will be back to doing what I'm used to doing: weird little movies that nobody sees.

There are many kinds of movies in Hong Kong. Some are commercial and others are more artistic.

Making movies is eating candy. It's a very expensive candy, so you value when you can do it. So when you can do it twice at once, it's like, you know, a kid in a candy store!

It just proves good movies don't need 100 million dollars to be good.

In the past I've made movies that were pretty universally liked. You can't really hate them. You can discard them, but you can't really hate them.

I grew up wanting to make movies, and along the way I suddenly found that I had a career doing comedy.

When I go to movies I generally want to be taken to another world.

There were not fifteen people in the story department and twenty-five producers and stuff. And Roger had produced 1,000 movies and directed a couple of hundred, and their comments were always very, very specific.

You can make movies for a select audience, but you have to market it to them.You can make movies for a select audience, but you have to market it to them.

Well, it was actually - I brought the idea of doing a documentary to HBO back in 2000, when there were some press reports sort of were bandied about that there were going to TV movies based on some of the books that were out.

I don't think any actor feels comfortable watching themselves in movies. You must be very narcissistic. The problem with your own opinion of yourself is that contrary to the normal spectators, when you watch a film you are in, you only watch yourself.

Racing Stripes was so much fun to do. It's one of the funniest movies I've seen in a couple years.

I think the audience would like to see movies that are stunning to watch. I really think they'd like to see spectacles.

I feel like I'm a fighter. I've fought my whole life to get to where I'm at. I like fight movies. When someone gets knocked down, I like to root for him to succeed.

After the war, there was no industry. We lost the war. We had our whole city destroyed. No money. No studio. No film. No camera. No equipment. We would shoot in the street. We had no actors. Nothing. But we wanted to do movies. And we did the best movies in the world.

Star Wars, the original movie, was all the various old genre of pictures: the swashbucklers, the war movies, all those things were put n there in a different look.

That is why it's so fun to make movies... you get to do lots of things you would never do in your normal life.

I think it's time to do clean-up for a generation. I believe this is one of the movies that hits home for all colors and all races. Everybody I talk to, black or white, suburban, rich or poor, can relate to rejection, can relate to not having a father or a mother.

But then I go through long periods where I don't listen to things, usually when I'm working. In between the records and in between the writing I suck up books and music and movies and anything I can find.

And I love Mel Brooks. My Dad loved his movies, too, they're awesome, the kind of thing that if you're in for ten minutes, you're in for two hours.

Frankly, I got into the movies because I like the movies a lot.

Movies are so rarely great art that if we cannot appreciate great trash we have very little reason to be interested in them.

It was like in Samoa when they'd put up a movie screen on the beach and show movies and the locals would run behind the sheet to see where the people went. It was pretty grim.