"Every film you see in film school takes on a heightened importance in your life."
"If someone is poor in India, they should be able to watch the same films as rich people."
"Definitely, I feel that there is a need for more female producers, directors, and writers."
"I unfortunately do suffer for my art."
"Through my political work in D.C., and having done 'Milk' I got to know a lot of gay octogenarians. They are lovely and they like to tell their stories, and I like hearing them."
"We expected that people were just waiting for the collapse of the Soviet Union, or at least for its retreat, and they were going to be full of initiative in all areas of life - in culture, in economy and in politics."
"I've been very lucky in the freedom that I've been given. Every artist needs two types of freedom: You need the freedom to - the freedom to come up with an idea or treatment - and then you need the other half of the freedom, and that's freedom from - somebody saying, 'This is great. This is how I want you to do it.'"
"I always liked photography in film - I studied photography growing up. I like the medium of film; I like physically holding 35-mm film. I like the way it looks, the quality when it's projected. I like the way it frames real life."
"I definitely have moments in my life where I discovered a film, and the language of the film itself spoke to me in a way, as if someone came up to you and started speaking a language you'd never heard but understood and was able to express things the language you knew could not."
"My mind was never into school, and education did not matter to me."
"It took me forever, learning improvisation, because I had studied with Lee Strasberg - I dropped out of Chicago and went to his classes in New York for a couple of years, once or twice a week. What I didn't realize was I was learning directing because he wasn't all that good about acting, not for me."
"The thing that fascinates me is that the way I came to film and television is extinct. Then there were gatekeepers, it was prohibitively expensive to make a film, to be a director you had to be an entrepreneur to raise money."
"Each time I'm starting to work on a film, even if I love to settle the plot in the real world, I start to think about the plot as a fairy tale, or a dream, or a nightmare... As if it was the best way to tell the truth about characters or narration, instead of realism."
"I always loved movies, but I never thought I would presume to be a screenwriter and definitely not a director."
"My wife is 37 years younger than me. I don't feel the difference."
"I think, for me, Julian Schnabel set a great precedent in being able to cross over so successfully. I feel like his artwork is kind of big, grand, and bombastic, yet the films that he makes are very beautifully sensitive, and I just feel that his filmmaking sensibility is very different from his artwork."
"From now on, any flick I'm ever involved with, I conduct critics screenings thusly: 'You wanna see it early to review it? Fine: pay like you would if you saw it next week.'"
"It was such a joy to be an actor on 'The Wire.'"
"I wasn't good enough to be a professional soccer player obviously but that was my first goal in life."
"I have felt that there's a lot of receptiveness to female stories now. I think some of it has a little bit - a lot of it is economically driven and driven by, just, kind of studios wanting to check that box because now they know they have a woman problem that they need to solve."
"Life is short, so I'm knowing exactly where I'm putting my time. I don't want to do things that I don't have to do."
"I honestly believe that the next big leap in immersive technology will be very much like Brainstorm."
"The concept of 'family' has changed so much. It's not just 'mom and dad' anymore. It's 'mom and mom' and 'dad and dad,' and it's kind of beautiful."
"I'm following my interests, and there's something about investigating the world and creating a watchable, entertaining programme out of it that is deeply satisfying."
"When I have people around, I'm a chatterbox. But when I'm alone, I never speak. I don't talk to myself; it's just not my schtick."
