Look, I had a passion for comic books growing up.
What I felt at that time - we're talking about '61 - was that I couldn't remember seeing a film that reflected the age we were living in.
The cinema is there to heighten the imagination; I have always tried to make sure it does so.
To be successful, you really have to put your ego in the background and try to be diplomatic to achieve what you want to achieve.
I always wanted to design for films.
Remember, the early '60s in London was something - which must have been like Berlin in the '30s when the arts flourished. You didn't have the differences in class, and so on.
One thing that I think works in 'Casablanca' and which I've lectured a lot about - in terms of what I've been trying to achieve as a designer - is the film's creation of its own form of reality.
Ten soldiers wisely led will beat a hundred without a head.
What matter though the scorn of fools be given If the path follow'd lead us on to heaven!
I think I have kind of a natural magnetism.
The Big Sleep' would have been a more effective study of nightmarish existence had the detective been more complicated and had more curiosity been shown about his sweetheart's relation to the crime.