If you don't generate tension in the film to begin with... you can't really make a purse out of a sow's ear, you know.

We don't have to sacrifice a strong economy for a healthy environment.

The earth is a tremendous gift. There is nothing else like it in the known universe. I want to leave it the way I found it.

If we had a hydrogen economy worldwide, every nation on earth could create its own energy source to support its economy, and the threat of war over diminishing resources would just evaporate.

Business has to change the way it does business, or we will make no significant changes in the way we relate to the earth.

We're the only species that have crapped up the planet and the only species that can clean it up.

If you don't generate tension in the film to begin with... you can't really make a purse out of a sow's ear, you know.

We should be able to support our own economy within our own borders.

War is usually fought over diminishing resources, particulary those that we perceive to be extremely valuable.

Coming back to a television series puts you back in the limelight and gives you a platform for your ideas. If you're not acting on a series, you don't get the ability to communicate to people.

Changing mass consciousness is an individual responsibility.

The premise is simple: One economy and one environment, and they're interdependent.

It's not an if - we're going to have to change. Oil is simply going to be gone.

When I was a kid, we never heard of smog, ozone depletion, acid rain, green house gasses.

Practically every environmental problem we have can be traced to our addiction to fossil fuels, primarily oil.

I feel responsible; I feel I've got to do something that will leave the kids a place where they can live healthy, safe, productive, creative and prosperous lives.

The people of the future will say, meat-eaters in disgust and regard us in the same way that we regard cannibals and cannibalism.

When we realize we can make a buck cleaning up the environment, it will be done!

It's fun to be a little bit different in the world, to make a few new trails of your own.

Whatever we'll be forced to do later, we should be doing now.

If we were driving pure hydrogen automobiles, that automobile would actually help clean up the air because the air coming out of the exhaust would be cleaner than the air going into the engine intake.

Business must be the solution, not the problem.

We dont have to sacrifice a strong economy for a healthy environment.

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.

My advice to young film-makers is this: don't follow trends, start them!

The whole aspect of cinema and film festivals should be a moment to come together and celebrate art and humanity. It would be a shame if there was such a divide.

It's really rare for film directors to be that interested in things other than themselves.

When I said I was going to audition for a film, I got a hearty laugh from all my family.

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.

We're making a commercial Hindi film catering to all types of audiences.

They all matter to me, whether I'm working on a Sam Jackson film for a week or I'm the star of my own TV series - I take it all very seriously, and I have a healthy respect for the work in general, despite the role.