Normal is not something to aspire to, it's something to get away from.
Jodie Foster
My definition of a friend is somebody who adores you even though they know the things you're most ashamed of.
It's an interesting combination: Having a great fear of being alone, and having a desperate need for solitude and the solitary experience. That's always been a tug of war for me.
I think 'destiny' is just a fancy word for a psychological pattern.
Cruelty might be very human, and it might be cultural, but it's not acceptable.
I think an artist's responsibility is more complex than people realize.
I didn't have any ambition to produce big mainstream popcorn movies.
I've always had this idea that I wanted movies to make people better not worse.
I just want to make movies. I really love movies. I want to be involved with them.
The world is littered with movies about people that are depressed that either did not come out or are not successful.
I guess I've played a lot of victims, but that's what a lot of the history of women is about.
I don't know if I see myself as really an action hero, but I like doing physical movies and I like doing movies where the writing is very lean.
I wish that I spoke more languages. I speak a couple languages, but not well enough to really dub myself. French is really the only one, and it's a difficult thing.
I feel at various times in my life that I've been at a point where I had to choose between a death sentence and a life sentence. And I want to live. What do I do to live? What do I do to be vital? And the answer is always creativity. The answer is always art.
As an actor, I'm always playing solitary characters. But as a director, I'm always making ensemble movies, which focus on lots of people's lives and how they intertwine.
I want to be inspiring to myself, to my kids, my family, and my friends.
I had a prodigious life, living in a grown-up world when I was a child. But I think my abilities were about perceptiveness, and they were about examining psychology and examining people and relationships.
I don't like it when reviews aren't about the movie. When they're about how much money somebody made, or who they're sleeping with, or if they got the job via some connection, or about how Fox is putting X amount of dollars into it.
I love more than anything looking at a movie scene by scene and seeing the intention behind it. It allows you to really appreciate the hand of the filmmaker.
I think I'm drawn to films more as a director with a directorial mind even as an actor. I make movies to make the films, not to act.
The best reason to make a film is that you feel passionately about it.
I had a certain career as an actor that I think was quite personal as well, and had a lot of integrity, but I wasn't writing my own things or directing my own movies.
Otherness is a big thing for me. I'm always drawn to characters that live lives that I couldn't lead.
I'm really not a clothes person. To me, that's just work. It's the thing I hate to do the most. I don't want to be judged in that way.
I was one of those avid moviegoers as a kid, and we didn't have video, so we went to see everything five times. I went to see every foreign film playing in my town. As times went on, I watched a lot less films. I have a different film school now. My film school now is my life experience.
I like to be in a different place when I make a movie so that I can't really focus on anything else, and that is your world.
I like dramas. I've always liked dramas. And I'm a pretty light person. I don't consider myself a very dramatic person. But I do like doing that onscreen.
I like to nap. I do like to sleep. Sometimes I sleep in between takes.
So, yes, there's nothing I love more than listening to directors talk about their movies.
Being understood is not the most essential thing in life.
Part of me longs to do a job where there's not a gray area.
Any actor working a long time should know how a shot is set up, where to place themselves, how to handle the lines. I'm a member of the crew, like the best boy, the electrician. What I'm good at is making eyes at the camera.
I think anybody over 30 plays parents because it happens in your thirties and so that's kind of a natural progression. But I'm definitely drawn to it. It's probably the most intense, passionate thing that happens to you as you get older.
Well, I certainly was exposed to and learned to appreciate the work of great directors early on. As a kid, my mother used to take me to see really interesting arty films in Los Angeles.
I don't make movies because I love to act. I make movies because I like to make movies, and I like to be a part of that process.
I had to take my makeup off at work every night. I wasn't allowed to do it at home because my mom said that when your work day is done, you're done with work.
But the reason I became, why I wanted to be in the business was because there was Midnight Cowboy.
I will always love psychology, and the basis of psychology is family.
If I make two movies my entire life, and they're two movies that - whether they make a lot of money or two people go to see them - they speak of me, then I consider them incredibly successful. I don't need to be Steven Spielberg.
I think every movie changes me and is life changing, especially movies you direct.
I don't like the outside world to intrude when I'm making a film. I like to either see my family or work, but I don't like to go out.
I make movies about people in spiritual crisis because it's a way for me to spend the time, the energy, the focus and the obsession to come to terms with my own spiritual crisis.
My earliest memories are doing commercials and TV.
I don't see anyone walking around with a puppet on his hand in real life. Puppet therapy is very common for children. It's not something that adults take on.
All the movies that I make in some ways have to be the story of my life. There are different chapters in my life.
I prefer to commit 100 per cent to a movie and make fewer films, because it takes over your life.
Boys are easy. I mean, there are just a lot of bruises when they're young. With boys, you get a lot of accidental jabs in the eye and stepping on your feet, and those tantrums they cause when they don't want to leave the toy store.
With 'Taxi Driver,' I had this eureka moment. I realized that acting could be much more than what I had been doing. I had to build a character that wasn't me.
I wish people could get over the hang-up of subtitles, although at the same time, you know, that's kind of why I'm kind of pro dubbing.
Knowing what paint a painter uses or having an understanding of where he was in the history of where he came from doesn't hurt your appreciation of the painting.
