I was always amazed about how much I could finally squeeze into a thirty second commercial.

And I maintain good relationships with all the studios so I've never been bullied into any cut, frankly.

My career seems to be a career of non-specific subjects which are all over the place.

I watched Someone to Watch Over Me the other night. I thought it was a really good movie. It's a great movie.

Do what you haven't done is the key, I think.

I do a pretty good job at casting actually.

A hit for me is if I enjoy the movie, if I personally enjoy the movie.

And anyway, it's only movies. to stop me I think they'll ahve to shoot me in the head.

MPC, Moving Picture Company, they're really excellent, they did the majority of the effects.

Yes, obviously, there's this degree of wanting people to accept other people faiths and philosophies.

I think one of the successes of Gladiator is how we manage to turn on a dime the character from one thing to another where you believe he is one thing and he is something very different.

I get so used to working with writers that my prime occupation is development.

Digital is a different world because you are sitting at home and a hi tech piece of equipment today is within reach of most people, so they are watching a pretty hi tech version of whatever you've done.

Some people like to do everything always the same thing. That's another way: To do the same thing.

Life isn't black and white. It's a million gray areas, don't you find?

Same thing with film, by the time you've finished shooting and you've really been into everything, you've touched up everything in the editing room. You've gone in there and taken little bits from everything.

Blade Runner appears regularly, two or three times a year in various shapes and forms of science fiction. It set the pace for what is essentially urban science fiction, urban future and it's why I've never re-visited that area because I feel I've done it.

People say I pay too much attention to the look of a movie but for God's sake, I'm not producing a Radio 4 Play for Today, I'm making a movie that people are going to look at.

Politics is very interesting and always leads to conflict.

I knew exactly what to do on Alien, it was funny.

That's part of the policy: To keep switching gears.

I was always amazed about how much I could finally squeeze into a thirty second commercial.

Cast is everything.

When you're doing a big movie, you're gone for 10 months to a year.

But Gladiator is one of my favourite adventures because I really loved going into the world. I loved creating the world to the degree where you could almost smell it.

Good FBI officers are not noticeable. You would never look at them.

I don't ever blink, honestly.

I think if I'm going to do a science fiction, I'm going to go down a new path that I want to do.

If I have to, I'll go and direct theater and talk till the cows come home.

What you do, is you gradually become more and more experienced, and more and more realistic about dramatic tolerance, i.e. about how long the play should be.

It's everything and I always make decisions about the cast.

'Alien' is a C film elevated to an A film, honestly, by it being well done and a great monster. If it hadn't had that great monster, even with a wonderful cast, it wouldn't have been as good, I don't think.

'Alien' is a landmark. One of the really good science-fiction films.

'Blade Runner' was a comic strip. It was a comic strip! It was a very dark comic strip. Comic metaphorically.

'Prometheus' was a great experience for me.

'The Duellists' won Cannes, but Paramount didn't know how to release a film about two guys in bizarre breeches, waving swords around. I actually think it's a pretty good Western.

'The Man In High Castle' is one of Dick's most imaginative and captivating works, and certainly one of my favorites.

A word on 'Kingdom of Heaven:' if you get the four-disc set, which is 3 hr. 8 min., you'll see why it's such a good movie. It was a real passion project, and it's the film I'm most proud of. I think it was treated incredibly unfairly.

Actors are all different. They're not all volatile. Some are sweet, some are volatile, but what is fundamentally in there is something that has to be paid attention to, in that they are, I would say, needy.

Any period is fascinating: the more ancient, the better.

Anybody who does 90 takes has a problem.

Are we the first hominids? I really, really, really doubt it.

As a filmmaker, deep blacks are essential, and in my experience, no technology captures those attributes as well as Plasma.

Audiences are smarter than ever; they know if filmmakers cheat an environment.

Choosing location is integral to the film: in essence, another character.

Churchill strikes a note in my life because my father worked on Mulberry Harbour, which was the code name for the temporary concrete harbours which were towed across the Channel to make the D-day landings in France possible.

Conscience, the power of conscience, can unearth all kinds of things.

Dad entered the Second World War like any other man, trying to do the right thing.

Doing science fiction at a high level is tricky. It's really tricky.