Music in this film is a very important part.

A conversation goes sometimes into personal things and that's nicer. You look to each other and you have a different picture, you get into a relationship.

Except here it's more power, more energy, younger and also in Europe it's still not only entertainment. Theater or films are looked at as a moral institution. That's why maybe they're so poetic. Here it's clear entertainment.

The interesting thing is that I found scenes which I put together which could appeal to almost every woman, or apply to almost every woman after the war. Falling in love, dancing, marrying.

I never played the right roles, or very rarely got the right roles offered, except on stage.

I did have fun, for example, in The Black Hole which was very popular among youngsters.

First love is first love, first marriage is first marriage, disappointment is disappointment.

And in reality, I don't think it's a real documentary. It's more a story of her life. It's a story of survival. It's a story of the time in which she lived. The story of success and failure.

I'm always happy when I'm left alone, but if somebody comes and is nice, then we talk.

I played piano, I learned a lot about music.

I think there's a poet who wrote once a tragedy by Shakespeare, a symphony by Beethoven and a thunderstorm are based on the same elements. I think that's a beautiful line.

We should never forget that Hollywood was built by Europeans, and the old Jewish boys from Eastern Europe.

I just think the word interview, although it is the view between two people exchanged, became a sort of cliche. You ask questions and the other one answers.

Well, I did Marlene 15 years ago and that's in the style. It's somehow similar and not similar because Marlene was much more aggressive, funny and sad.

And it's interesting, but I'm always interested in the story behind the story.

Music in this film is a very important part.

As an actor, I was a fantastic rebel. Then I became a directorial rebel and understood rebels from both sides. So now I am a friend who gives advice - not one who knows more, necessarily, but who shares ideas.

Directing is like meeting a woman. You don't know her, but something strikes you, and then you just have to go into it.

Everything you do has certain significance, a certain weight. I think there is a film in everyone.

I am America's number-one fan. I like your food. Especially corn flakes.

I'll never forget Spencer Tracy. He only worked from nine to one - then from three to five again.

My mother was an actress and a director, as well. And my father was a playwright and poet.

To be honest, I don't think I'm an actor. I'm a creator - or try to be.

When I was a young actor, in my first apartment, the first thing I bought was a Steinway piano. There was no bed at first. I slept on the floor.

When you have the cast, the sets, the lights, an opera takes on its own life. I'm not one of those directors who marches in with a set of plans.

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.