I could be the driver - the Uber guy saying, "I used to be in films years ago... ."
I don't watch a lot of films. I'm usually involved in making them.
You have to steal a lot. You have to have a criminal mentality to be a film director.
If you cast a film incorrectly, then you're going to be fighting an uphill battle.
Once you finish a film, it doesn't belong to you anymore - it belongs to the audience to interpret it the way they feel like interpreting.
In America, instead of making the audience come to the film, the idea seems to be for you to go to the audience. They come up with the demographics for the film and then the film is made and sold strictly to that audience.
When you're making a movie, you can't think anybody will ever see it. You've just got to make a movie for the values it has. The greatest films were made because someone really wanted to make them. And, hopefully, the audience will show up, too.
I have great respect for the FBI, and I know that there have been some rumors lately that the FBI was disenchanted because of what we were doing in story, or doing a certain take: that's not true. Actually the FBI was tremendously enthusiastic about us doing [ J. Edgar Hoover ] film.
When you think of a particular director, you think you would have liked to be with them on one particular film and not necessarily on some other one.
Everybody puts importance in money on a film set.
Everybody thinks making films back to back is a big deal but they did it all the time in the old days.
Pose? I don't pose. What am I? Paris Hilton or something?
We were dealing with films that had very prominent roles for women and I felt I was actually contributing something. Many people had wondered why I would want to do a film where the best part was a woman's part. But I wasn't afraid to be the lesser intelligence in a film.
You have to go with your instincts. I remember when I was about to make "Fistful of Dollars" a big article came out that said, "Italian Westerns are finished." I said, "Swell." Then, of course, the film came out, and it did something. I'm so glad for the dozens of times I haven't listened along the way.
