My principal job is to make interesting and entertaining films, and I'm not proud of which format or which particular technique I use. I just wanted the film to look good.
If you change the rules on what controls you... you will change the rules on what you can control.
I'm not under too much of an illusion of how smart or un-smart I am because filmmaking ultimately is about teamwork.
If somebody has a better idea than me, I'll take it if it surpasses what we have on the page because at the end of the day, it's me that takes the credit anyway!
The idea is that that there is no such thing as an external enemy.
I got into film-making because I was interested in making entertaining movies, which I felt there was a lack of.
We can all be conned but at what point do we realize that we're being conned and to what point do we allow ourselves to be conned?
The best thing to do is find one person in your life and try to love them unconditionally. If you've accomplished that, you've accomplished a lot.
It's OK to have beliefs, just don't believe in them.
I'd like to work with the missus, but there's nothing in the pipeline at the moment.
I got too fed up with films that didn't make you think. I liked the idea of one that you'd have to be dancing around with. I like my mind to be engaged when I watch a film.
You get a different kick out of all aspects of filmmaking.
Brad [Pitt], poor geezer, was blown up, thrown around, burned, slapped, frozen. But never a moan or a whine. Now that's what I call a real star.
It's not easy to strap yourself down to a desk and bash on a keyboard when you know you can direct lots of films, because directing films is fun and interactive and gregarious. Writing isn't.
Sugar is responsible for a lot of deaths. Arguably more than crack cocaine.
I think there's a natural system in your own head about how much violence the scene warrants. It's not an intellectual process, it's an instinctive process.
My approach to violence is that if it's pertinent, if that's the kind of movie you're making, then it has a purposeI think there's a natural system in your own head about how much violence the scene warrants. It's not an intellectual process, it's an instinctive process. I like to think it's not violence for the sake of violence and in this particular film, it's actually violence for the annihilation of violence.
I can understand that the whole world is interested in my wife Madonna. That's even why I married her.
I still love her. But she's retarded, too.
Its about not letting the internal enemy, the real enemy, have his way because the more he does the stronger he becomes. The films about the devastating results that can manifest from the internal enemy being unbridled and allowed to unleash chaos.
The most nervous I've ever been was on a 250 pound music video which is the first thing I ever did. And I stepped on there with a directing partner, so I could blame him when everything went tits up. But since then my nerves have incrementally decreased so I'm not plagued by the same sense of nerves as I used to be.
I think everything you do, characters I always find, have their own voices and once you establish who that character is you find a different voice. I think it's just a question of establishing that character and the voice speaks through that character.
I love fatherhood. I could bang on about kids forever.
I think it's that much harder to make a good comedy than it is straight and apparently serious.
We are not that flash, me or the missus. In fact, we are quite low-maintenance.
