It's the first film that I made where the director was not present under the camera, and it threw me.

I went to the Tokyo Film Festival in Japan because I love Japanese cinema.

I hate biographies which say, I was called to such and such an office, and he offered me so and so, and I got so and so money. I find that very tedious. The best biographies are written by other people.

Cinema will always have an important role to play in society.

I think it's the end of progress if you stand still and think of what you've done in the past. I keep on.

When I did small films like Lily and Buenos Vista, everyone thought my career would be ruined.

I went to Kerala in India, to learn Ayurveda, which was fantastic.

I regret not doing a film that I was offered with Clark Gable because the script was not good enough.

Fred Astaire was a more formal, trained dancer who loved waltzing and only danced with the girls.

The studio system collapsed only when Elizabeth Taylor charged $1 million for Cleopatra.

It's very difficult to marry into another civilization.

I seemed to belong to three countries: I had an apartment in Paris, a house in Hollywood, and when I married British theater director Peter Hall, I moved to London.

It's the first film that I made where the director was not present under the camera, and it threw me.

We were all ruled by the studio system. I signed a contract for seven years.

I had two children. I had a nanny to manage my kids.

The most important thing is to remain active and to love what you are doing.

You have actresses like Meryl Streep and Julia Roberts, who have roles specially written for them.

I was trying to be very at ease in this arrogant person, and very worldly, but something human came into the part. I hate to say that. I wanted to be totally worldly.

I know a lot of Americans in Paris who have married Frenchmen. They keep bringing up their experience, the clash of civilizations, the clash of personalities.

There were many good actresses in my time like Jane Powell and Debbie Reynolds, but I was the only dancer.

James Ivory comes close to the actors for the first rehearsal. He more or less lets you direct yourself and then will only correct you if he finds it incorrect.

I got as little as a $75 a week when I started.

The American is wholeheartedly for love and romance at any cost.

No matter what you do, your person comes through. You can't completely change yourself on the screen. I had in mind someone colder and more in control, but I couldn't do it. This human note just crept in and maybe it's better.

I toured the Middle Eastern countries with the ballet.

I longed to break out of the system and do different roles.

In order to have great happiness you have to have great pain and unhappiness - otherwise how would you know when you're happy?

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.