Never take no for answer, and try to make films that turn you on.
I met John when I was 18 and I was in my first John Waters film when I was 19.
Definitely it would be foolish to try and make my Czech films here in America, as foolish as it is when some Czech filmmakers try to make movies of America in Czechoslovakia. It was always abysmal stuff.
I think everybody dreamt somehow to make a film in Hollywood, you know.
Communists love to make films about composers, because composers compose music and don't talk subversive things.
When you finish a film, before the first paying audience sees it, you don't have any idea. You don't know if you made a success or a flop, when it comes to the box office.
Making a film is like learning the ropes all over again.
I love pre-code movies. Some of my favorites are movies with Warren William and there is an MGM film called "Skyscraper Souls" which is the best Warner Brothers movie that MGM ever made.
When I graduated from high school, I got accepted to York University, Fine Arts film program.
Film is endlessly just beyond your reach. I think that's what I love so much about it.
I pretty much believe that a film is a film and when an audience watches a film, they finish it.
But actually I make films that I think are extremely sophisticated and cinematic.
You will find hardly any improvising on camera anywhere in my films. It's very structured, but it's all worked out from elaborate improvisations over a long period, as you know.
I've walked out of films. But for every film I've ever walked out of, I've probably walked out of 500 plays.
I'm developing the stuff all the time. There's a film in my head. I'm imagining a film.
A lot of the reasons that I'm resistant to making films in the U.S. have nothing to do with not doing a film in Hollywood, but rather to do with what I'm committed to working on in the U.K. I feel very committed to the British film industry and infrastructure.
The problem with the British film industry is the nervousness and insecurity about - and genuflection toward - Los Angeles.
People have been very resistant to giving me more than the standard amount of money. So I keep making films on a similar scale. Which is fine, but also frustrating.
Films are made all over the world all the time and only a thin slice of that product is Hollywood.
Independent filmmaking has always been there and it's not to be forgotten.
If I'm ever working on a set and anyone talks about a master shot, I say there is no master shot. Before I even went to film school, I learned about movies by being in a British feature film, where everything was shot master shot, mid-shot, close-up. But I reject the idea of a master shot. You don't shoot everything mechanically; you find imaginative ways that serve the action.
The reason my films work is because every actor on set is very secure. They're able to fly.
I don't know what the character is going to be. We sit down and we create a character, and all of the characters in all of my films are made like that.
Films take up so much time, and with theatre, you do have to plan a period of time that you can be free.
I've held onto little musical sketches that I thought could be useful, and the more time that I spend doing them for each film, then the more I have to draw on.
