Then I found books that were written much later, as late as 15 years ago. It was very superficial material, but enough to tell me that the genesis of this story was worth exploring.

Because I actually find the next take after they’ve controlled it a little bit and repressed the laughter is actually a really interesting take, because that’s still going on underneath the surface. That struggle to...

Television provides the opportunity for an ongoing story – the opportunity to meld the cast and the characters and a world, and to spend more time there.

Now a movie goes out to two, three thousand theaters and by Friday night at 10 o’clock they know if you are in or out. That desperate competition is, I think, horrendous. It’s awful.

When James Cameron brought me the script, which I developed with both Cameron and Jay Cocks, I wanted to make it a thriller, an action film, but with a conscience, and I found that it...

What do you take me for? A fourteen karat sucker?

It’s a miserable life in Hollywood. You’re up at five or six o’clock in the morning to be ready to start shooting at nine.

The director is the teller of the film, the director tells the movie, like you would tell a story, except in this case you’re telling a movie.

It was very unusual, because normally the producer requests the test to determine whether they want to hire someone or not. Olivia was concerned about playing a seventeen year old.

There’s so few people in this town with a conscience.

The only reason for using another cut is to improve the scene.

My biggest role as director on the film is keeping a sense of the overview – how to cast the movie and shoot it in such a way that it will cut together. And how...

There’s a science fiction project we really want to make, but it’s very expensive. Hopefully it will happen.

Art does imitate life, and the Rodney King beating was a real event. It’s a part of all our consciousness, and there’s no value in ignoring it.

A loaf of bread, a jug of wine, and thou.

I guess why the Ocean’s films are hard for me is because on the one hand you have to make sure the performances are there, but on the other hand it’s a film that demands,...

Burt Lancaster was largely responsible for me becoming a director.

Being a hooker does not mean being evil. The same with a pick-pocket, or even a thief. You do what you do out of necessity.

All of us have our individual curses, something that we are uncomfortable with and something that we have to deal with, like me making horror films, perhaps.

Human identity is the most fragile thing that we have, and it’s often only found in moments of truth.

Film is not an easy occupation. There’s a lot of occupations that are difficult and film is one of them.

When I was 50, I said, ‘That’s it,’ And they said, ‘How?’ I said, ‘What do you mean how? I’ve been working now for 50 years now.’

He’s very alive in a scene. He’s a very good actor to act with. Even though through most of the picture he’s blind, there are many places early in the picture I got to be...

One of the elements in the film that really fascinated me was not to look at the world in bi-polar terms of us vs them or east vs west, which was a by-product of the...

It’s just often more interesting to write about one or more people who are being awful to other people because it makes for exciting, dramatic fare.

The key is, if you’re not monkeying around with the script, then everything usually goes pretty well.

I mean, certainly writing, painting, photography, dance, architecture, there is an aspect of almost every art form that is useful and that merges into film in some way.

I never graduated high school; they had to change the Ivy League rules. During my tenure at Brown, I helped them become the number one Ivy League school.

There was a war crimes trial because an American prisoner had been shot trying to escape. He had obviously been recaptured and shot, and that violated the Geneva Convention.

But I always reassure them that as far as my contractual rights can go, I will protect them and make sure that they have approval over every bit of it so that they know I...

Sex is a doorway to something so powerful and mystical, but movies usually depict it in a completely flat way.

There are a lot of memories that are very… nutritious. I’ve had a very fortunate career. I’ve worked with practically every icon you can think of.

Whereas painting is a more rarefied art form, with a limited audience, I recognized film as this extraordinary social tool that could reach tremendous numbers of people.

You’re an idealist, and I pity you as I would the village idiot.

It’s eighty percent script and twenty percent you get great actors. There’s nothing else to it.

The very reasons sometimes that you make a film are the reasons for its failure.

Olivia Newton-John was our first choice to play Sandy, but she was nervous about acting, whether she would feel comfortable with us and could pull it off at all.

If anyone’s been around some very long cocaine evenings, there’s nothing that’s in SCARFACE that we all haven’t seen before.

With me it was that defending the Communist Party was something worse than naming the names.

My favorite laser disk ever was the laser disk for The Graduate, which had a commentary track that wasn’t even the filmmakers, it was a professor, some film criticism guy who just happen to be...

We had this idea about a woman who you would see on the street and make a host of sexual assumptions, and they would all be wrong.

Character and emotionality don’t always have to be relegated to quieter, more simple constructs.

The moving finger writes, and having written moves on. Nor all thy piety nor all thy wit, can cancel half a line of it.

I had more fun making Traffic than either of the Ocean’s films.

But, I’ve made films in Japan, in Yugoslavia, all over Europe, all over the United States, Mexico, but not Hollywood.

Movement should be a counter, whether in action scenes or dialogue or whatever. It counters where your eye is going. This style thing, for me it’s all fitted to the action, to the script, to...

I learned to take the first job that you have in the business that you want to get into. It doesn’t matter what that job is, you get your foot in the door.

I’m me, I live from film to mouth.

Learning to make films is very easy. Learning what to make films about is very hard.

I made all these films and I had all kinds of great experiences. I worked with the great filmmakers and it was a very exciting life.