I wanted to make a film that was sophisticated and emotional, but for a wider audience.

It's rare that scenes last more than 2 or 3 minutes, so sound helps segue from one scene to another.

I had no special effects, no monsters running around, nothing blew up; those things are all things I've done so many times that they lose their allure after a while.

Everyone was going to play their part honestly, and not try and pretend to be good or bad guys.

I've always been a bit of a sound freak in the movies I've done.

We shoot double episodes in 15 days in Los Angeles.

I had a birthday one night on a farm we were shooting on. I walked into the tent, and there were 150 people waiting for me, all wearing masks of my face.

If people aren't in sync, things won't work out well.

I directed 24's pilot. I felt we should follow the characters around as if we were a documentary crew, using available light, hand-held cameras, split screens, sound that isn't always what it should be, to suit the reality of the premise.

To be able to rely completely on the actors was a very simple process for me.

I wanted to make a film that was sophisticated and emotional, but for a wider audience.

24 isn't like other shows, where you set the look once and you're done. The show started at midnight, then moved to a pre-dawn look, and now we're at dawn and we're warming up the day.

When I was thinking of casting this, I thought, What roles would Sellers be playing now?

Dark impulses certainly exist in me and, I think, in most people.

It's been exciting to be able to go forward with stuff without 10,000 people saying, It should be like this.

There's no attempt to manipulate the audience. We made our choice at the start.

I have an adult emotional life and an editing system inside me which prevents me from being preposterously stupid.

Each environment has its own signature. Sound tells a story: You make choices about what you're hearing, where to look, how you want to feel about what's going on.

Knowing that Gene and Morgan were playing those roles made it much easier to put the script together-we knew who we were writing it for. It took some mystery away.

Because of all the concurrent stories going in 24 and its fast pace, it can be complicated in terms of the story, so I thought sound could help with the storytelling.

We use a lot of source music on some shows and none on others.

There were no previews; we made the film we wanted to make.

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.

They all matter to me, whether I'm working on a Sam Jackson film for a week or I'm the star of my own TV series - I take it all very seriously, and I have a healthy respect for the work in general, despite the role.

There are no black film composers doing the likes of Star Wars, doing the likes of E.T., doing the likes of Jurassic Park. There are none, nor will there ever be one. That ain't about to happen!