In horror movies today it’s lots of fast cut shot and lots of loud noises on the soundtrack. I tried to do the opposite. Playing with silence for instance.

In Hollywood you always feel a bit like a hake. The publicists march people up and down in front of you and they interview you… You feel like the turbot and the sea-bream go by,...

My mother used to take my brother and me to get any books we wanted, but they were second hand books published in the ’30s and ’40s. I liked scary books.

What’s really exciting for me is communicating to other people and not just going somewhere to make a movie. That’s Hollywood to me and it would mean nothing.

Trying to get the attention of the audience in the opposite way it’s done in Hollywood today, which is to bombard the audience.

I was brought up Christian, then I was agnostic and then I realized I was atheist… This movie [Agora] is about fundamentalism and hate.

What we wanted to show was that this man, after 30 years, decides he wants to die and he doesn’t seem to us like someone who was unstable, as some people have suggested.

My movies are not movies of answers but of questions.

[About the Oscars] Is the ultimate prize for any producer. It would have been a dream if Javier Bardem had been nominated for best actor

An Oscar means a lot of things because it’s like the ultimate award for a filmmaker so it feels great. But I think you have to consider awards with some distance and not get obsessed...

I think the concept of the sea is very important.

Sometimes a piece of music in the score isn’t effective. When a score is too well finished with too many elements, sometimes it’s too much.

I wouldn’t say I’m a very controlling person. For instance, when I talk to the actors, I don’t tell them exactly what I want because I want them to surprise me. I even encourage them...