I grew up on film scores and scores from films.

I also work with the regular orchestras in Munich, Germany and other similar orchestras.

I worked with practically everybody in the business in all of the years in NBC, but I worked personally many years with people like Crosby and Sinatra, so of course that was a great ground school for me.

If you don't operate it as a business, you aren't going to be around very long.

I listen to everything.

I grew up on film scores and scores from films.

We do a lot of light classical programming with that, too... obviously... a lot of Tchaikovsky music, Grieg, things like that which have become less classical with classical concerts.

In a way, yes, because I was starting something fresh, and it was something totally independent.

And then I went into television; and then television moved from the East Coast to Hollywood.

I think my favorite experience is whatever I'm doing now.

Symphonic orchestras have almost become a glut in the market.

I recorded with Sinatra, but the recording business is a very strange strata right now.

We try to say it's creative and in a manner it is creative, but it is a business, because today, with the cost factor in crossing the boundaries that you do.

But I listen to everything, I listen to all artists that come along.

That was probably the stamp that went into my mind, because I worked in television for many years, doing that kind of music, so that really was my strong forte.

While there used to be one or two Pops orchestras, now there are all kinds of European orchestras that suddenly look upon this as a golden wand that can enable them to make money recording this music.

I had had a classical education prior to that.

Well, in our business, it's a very tough profession.

I've watched the demise of the Hollywood orchestra, the house orchestras of the big studios.

Well, I worked with lots of different artists, of course.

Do, What you're going to do in longevity. Not just what happens tomorrow.

I started off as a studio pianist in Hollywood.

Then I went to radio with Sinatra and I watched that disappear.

Although we are being presented in Carnegie Hall, we have to furnish a budget for our guest stars, and for the music writing - which is a huge budget in any orchestra that plays popular music.

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.

We're making a commercial Hindi film catering to all types of audiences.