Your take on things is what is either going to make you somebody people talk about or no.
I never leave the writer behind, because you rewrite the movie in post, or at least I do. I always do, and I feel like anybody who doesn't at least explore that possibility is short-changing themselves. Editing is the most fun and most exciting part of the process.
Nobody's talking about movies the way they're talking about their favorite TV shows.
Sometimes I might feel like [a movie] is kind of a weird idea and if I'm going to get enough money to execute it properly I've got to get somebody in it that is going to justify the expense.
I try to use other songs or bands as reference points - it seems like the easiest way to get across what are really differences of taste or opinion. If you know what kind of music somebody loves, then you can kind of figure out why they do what they do.
Ego is something that everybody, creative especially, has to grapple with. You need enough ego to keep going but not so much ego that you're deaf or blind, that you're making a mistake and can't fix the course.
The best set was probably 'Bloody Sunday.' We had no money for extras and gambled on months of outreach to persuade the people of Derry to turn out and march for us on one single afternoon. And they did. In their tens of thousands. Seeing them march, their patience and their dignity and their commitment, I knew the movie would have a quality of truth.
If you're not smart enough to know what Fidel meant during the Cuban revolution, that - when they were on the Granma - Fidel was already a rock star in Cuba, and how important that was to the indigenous population, then you're not paying attention.
Once I had a potentially heart attack-inducing eight double espressos in one day. I think my assistant secretly swaps my coffees for decaf as she doesn't want me to die of caffeine overdose.
Never had a cup of coffee in my life. Dr Pepper is my caffeine delivery system of choice.
I stopped reading reviews about my own movies. I read stuff about other people's movies.
If you think that because you're Che, when you go into Bolivia, when people find out it's you, that they're going to have the same kind of reaction that the Cubans had to Castro, then you're high.
I tend to be drawn more to people than pure story ideas.
I have no shame in making music that maybe, if you listen to it long enough, you'll realize you've heard this or that part of it before. I'm still very excited by an amazingly written song, so that's really the thing that I work on when I make records with people.
Castro, without question, is one of the smartest politicians that's ever walked.
There's definitely a way of thinking and a way of being in the South that has its advantages and disadvantages.
Never done an explosion, but I have had explosive diarrhea, and that was very, very real. Good thing I have my trailer.
I make every movie like it's the last one. "If this was the last movie, what decision would I make?" That's how I make my decisions.
If you're not flying people around on wires, and you're only allowing them to do things that people can really do, it can't go on for very long, because eventually somebody gets the drop on the other person and then it's over.
I'm always a little unnerved when I see a show that's set in the past that implies in any way that things were nicer then.
I just find it annoying that in these sequences [of the fight scenes], traditionally, there's music trying to pump you up. I don't like that, personally, as an audience member. This just reflects my taste.
People like Chris Nolan are shooting isolated sequences in IMAX. Those cameras are the size of a Volkswagen.
The muscle memory of filtering away all the wrong versions of what you're doing improves the more time you're on a film set. I feel like my problem-solving algorithm got kicked up a notch.
I'm not precious about anything. The effort it took to get something means nothing to me in post. It means nothing to the audience. I'll chop limbs off. I'll put an arm where a leg should be. I'll do anything.
The key is, how do you feel with the one asshole? They cannot be talked to. That's why they are assholes.
