I realized what interested me as a student of film was one thing and the movies that I liked were another.

I don't like shows, I don't like to put on a show, I just really want to work intimately with my actors.

I think she said I should seek help. Something like that, but it was in much cruder terms. And that I had a fascination with things coming out of people's mouths.

I realized what interested me as a student of film was one thing and the movies that I liked were another.

That's what heroic stories do for us. They show us the way. They remind us of the good we are capable of.

Any time anyone makes a comic book into a movie, in some way, I think they have to kill the comic book.

As I began making my feature films, it was a great adventure. It was about constructing something I saw in my head or I had designed on storyboards and capturing that on film.

Every picture has been a learning opportunity for me.

I don't like movies about serial killers, necessarily; it's too real and unpleasant for me.

I don't really approach stories to make them different from other stuff I've seen, I just try to get into the character, into his or her head. Try to make it as funny, as scary or as wild as I can so that I really like it.

I feel the horror audience is a great audience, and I would ideally make a movie that would give them as much energy as they're willing to give to the picture.

I like something where I can really use my imagination and be an active participant in the construction of the monster and usually that's in the world of the supernatural or the world of the fantastic, so that's why those kinds of stories about demons and the supernatural appeal to me or maybe I'm really interested in that subject.

I love cats. I've had cats as pets.

I think movies lost a lot when they went to stereo and five-track sound.

I'm not certain, but I have a little gypsy blood in me. And my mother always told me that her grandma could give someone the evil eye, and I'd better not cross her because she had some of that blood in her. Mother always believed that she could predict the future, and she had dreams that came true.

I've always been interested in the camera and the effects of it - that's what drew me to film in the first place.

I've always loved... actually I didn't always love horror films. I started out and I only liked comedies and dramas.

I've always made sequels, even when I was making Super 8 movies if the audience liked it.

I've always worked with a team of actors and filmmakers ever since I was a kid in Michigan making Super-8 movies.

If a remake is not good, no one wants to see it and, again, it doesn't hurt the original.

It's lovely being a producer. It's really a lot of fun and I can learn a lot.

Money opens up wonderful worlds of possibilities.

R is for wussies if you're talking about blood and guts.

Some movies to me are like vampires - they suck all of the energy out of me and I don't like that. I like to give the audience energy if I can.

Well it's always been an element of the horror film to show us the gross out. I mean that's one option for all filmmakers making a horror film and it's not something I've found myself above either.

When we read stories of heroes, we identify with them. We take the journey with them. We see how the obstacles almost overcome them. We see how they grow as human beings or gain qualities or show great qualities of strength and courage and with them, we grow in some small way.

You know, I put my little brother in the movies and he's still in the pictures. My mother makes me put him in the pictures.

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.