The real trouble with film school is that the people teaching are so far out of the industry that they don't give the students an idea of what's happening.

Yeah, I had an idea to make a very scary movie, based on a kind of serial murderer that preys on tourists.

Well, like any time you're shooting documentary stuff, you've got to be in the moment, and you've got to be able to be in control enough to capture what's happening.

You really are as hot as your last movie. And it goes away really quickly.

Well, I just think through your career you go through different phases, and I just got sort of uninspired by the whole studio process of making and releasing films.

So I like to try to go back and develop pure visual storytelling. Because to me, it's one of the most exciting aspects of making movies and almost a lost art at this point.

But, number one, I think traditional noir doesn't work in contemporary storytelling because we don't live in that world anymore.

You know, I listen to contemporary music all the time.

You know it's always amazed me - I think the most startling thing that's happened in the last couple of decades is that there is no sort of objective reporting anymore.

I guess what's most surprised me in most of the reviews is that they don't seem to get the noir story in the dream sequence, so they analyze it like a straight noir movie.

And I always had this idea for making a movie about a femme fatale, because I like these characters. They're a lot of fun, they're sexy, they're manipulative, they're dangerous.

I've been obsessed with this kind of visual storytelling for quite a while, and I try to create material that allows me to explore it.

I've been sort of traveling around the country for ten years talking about independent features.

I'm always looking for a kind of new musical entity to sort of move into a motion picture venue.

I've dropped myself into straightforward character pieces in order to explore that form and reap its values. But you are sort of restricted visually when your first requirement is to tell a fairly straightforward story.

However, I spent most of my time in a Quaker school.

I don't see scarey films. I certainly wouldn't go see my films.

Godard is incredibly brilliant, the things he says. Apparently here in France, the most interesting thing when a new film of his is going to come out are his press conferences, because he's so brilliant.

That's what noir feels like to me. It feels like some kind of recurring dream, with very strong archetypes operating. You know, the guilty girl being pursued, falling, all kinds of stuff that we see in our dreams all the time.

I mean, I don't mind promoting a movie, or talking to the press if it's going to be used in some way.

I hadn't done just a straight-out comedy in a long time, just letting an ensemble do really good character acting, having them carry the movie as in my earlier pictures.

I do like directing other people's material.

When you make a movie outside the system and it's successful critically or a moderate financial success, you usually have to go back into the system and make a big hit.

It's always great to discover a new star of tomorrow.

And we've become very doubtful of our information sources, because they're all controlled by these huge multilateral corporations.

However, ironically, I was baptized Presbyterian, and went to a Quaker school for twelve years.

The biggest mistake in student films is that they are usually cast so badly, with friends and people the directors know. Actually you can cover a lot of bad direction with good acting.

The real trouble with film school is that the people teaching are so far out of the industry that they don't give the students an idea of what's happening.

You know, when people want to get any information, research information, it will all exist on these Web sites.

It's always great when you discover someone.

That’s what noir feels like to me. It feels like some kind of recurring dream, with very strong archetypes operating. You know, the guilty girl being pursued, falling, all kinds of stuff that we see in our dreams all the time.

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.