Then I became interested in drama, and almost by accident, I drifted into film.

You make sure that there's a structure that's interesting for them to play on top of, then do temp versions and try it on the film. By the time the players come to the recording session, I've found what works. So I'm not wasting their time.

I would certainly say that films like Time Code and the Loss of Sexual Innocence were far more rewarding to me in terms of being able to move forward as a filmmaker.

One of the things I love about cinema is the range.

Each film is different. Time Code was very quick - a matter of months. Miss Julie has been on my shelf as a script for some seven or eight years. But then the shooting process was very quick - 16 days.

Obviously, I try to make the films work for an audience. That's the main point of making a film, and in retrospect, one can see that certain films, let's say Leaving Las Vegas, demonstrated its own success.

I like to work my camera as if it were a musical instrument.

There's a sadness to the human condition that I think music is good for. It gives a counterpoint to the visual beauty, and adds depth to pictures that they wouldn't have if the music wasn't there.

In discussing the process with the actors, I made it clear to them that they could improvise but that the sum total of their improvisation needed to impart certain plot points, and schematic material.

I'm a huge fan of world cinema, because each country uses cinema in a very individual way.

It's difficult working with very rich actors, because inevitably they become a little spoilt, and the managers and agents tend to control things more than is healthy.

You can do really slow movements with it, like zooming in for a minute and a half. The audience isn't aware that the camera has moved, but there's subconscious tension there.

Films take up so much time, and with theatre, you do have to plan a period of time that you can be free.

I've held onto little musical sketches that I thought could be useful, and the more time that I spend doing them for each film, then the more I have to draw on.

There's nothing I've done which I'm ashamed of or I thought was actually bad.

The world is an infinitely fascinating, tragic and humorous place.

I started using film as part of live theatre performance - what used to be called performance art - and I became intrigued by film.

I've spent my life hearing people trying to apologize for music.

I want the score to have a really big voice.

The power of sound to put an audience in a certain psychological state is vastly undervalued. And the more you know about music and harmony, the more you can do with that.

In a way, the history of jazz's development is a small mirror of classical music's development through the centuries. Now jazz is a living form of original music, while classical music has gotten to the end of its cycle in terms of exploring its form.

I might have a guitar or a piano on set to play something for the actors.

Then I became interested in drama, and almost by accident, I drifted into film.

I had no plans to be a director.

But I don't have such a strong desire to need to get away from filmmaking.

When I do the music, I make the musicians listen to what's happening in the film. That way they treat the dialogue as if it was a singer.

I am intrigued enough to want to continue, and also to try and work with companies like Sony on modifying the cameras and making them more user-friendly and efficient.

I play piano and trumpet. I studied classical guitar.

Name the greatest of all inventors. Accident.

I don't like to hurt people, I really don't like it at all. But in order to get a red light at the intersection, you sometimes have to have an accident.

Productivity is never an accident. It is always the result of a commitment to excellence, intelligent planning, and focused effort.

It was just an accident; I was never going to come out here.

So that is how I ended up with those two titles, I like Accidentally on Purpose better - it is how we work in our trade - is it really an accident, or is there a thread of destiny in there? That was the intention, I am not sure I found out.

Yes, of course that's true but you know, the irony of all that is that before the accident, I'd pretty much lost interest in playing drums.

Because we are in a war situation, this can sometimes be dangerous work. But guys like A.D. Flowers and his technicians just take it in stride and get on with the job. In four years, we've never had a serious accident or injury working with all the explosions.

When I was 21, I got into a motorcycle accident while traveling in Europe and I had to lie around a lot in the aftermath, which was really the first time in my life that I became really focused and inspired to write.

None of the modes by which a magistrate is appointed, popular election, the accident of the lot, or the accident of birth, affords, as far as we can perceive, much security for his being wiser than any of his neighbours.

Before my accident I was a little too... selfish and self-absorbed and for me, to now be at the place where I can kinda give back and inspire people. I'm blessed. I'm really blessed.

It is no accident that I made Cartoon Town a simple little village - in many ways it mirrored my home town. And, yes, many of my puppet characters took on some of the more eccentric characteristics of people I knew there.

It's no accident many accuse me of conducting public affairs with my heart instead of my head. Well, what if I do? Those who don't know how to weep with their whole heart don't know how to laugh either.

Well, I started conducting kind of by accident. I wanted to give myself a special birthday present for my fortieth birthday, and I was living in San Francisco at the time and I started attending some of the concerts and then simply dropping hints.

After the accident Black Sheep was pretty much at an end.

It's no accident that Tony Hopkins is a wonderful film actor.

Scholarship except by accident is never the measure of a person's power.

I am just at that stage of wondering where I go from here. I came into this business almost by accident, but now it has become serious. What started as a bit of fun, something to do other than be a model, has taken on a different career curve. I have been forced to ask where that curve is going to end up.

Even though things happen by accident, you also unconsciously choose things that help you.

I never did anything worth doing by accident, nor did any of my inventions come by accident; they came by work.

Fortuitous circumstances constitute the moulds that shape the majority of human lives, and the hasty impress of an accident is too often regarded as the relentless decree of all ordaining fate.

What you are, you are by accident of birth; what I am, I am by myself. There are and will be a thousand princes; there is only one Beethoven.