I see bits and pieces of me in all the characters in my films.
It's always a struggle with small films to get people in the theater. I think I have a perverse contrarian streak that's always kind of aspired to make movies that are impossible to market.
I was looking for people who didn't have any preconceptions about films, what I call the "post-rules" generation.
My favourite films are in languages I don't understand.
There are all kinds of ways that people present their films, but that's kind of a good feeling, if you can make it seem like the characters are really there.
I have enjoyed a wonderful run in films, so far, and I may, at some point, come back. But it will be in my own time and in my own style.
People make great films. I just don't have the eyes to watch them.
The media can make anything true or untrue. So if you do 80 films and you play a bad guy ten times, then you're a bad guy, and then the media repeats that.
It's been very much in the blood since I started imagining films or shooting with 8mm when I was a kid. I made some films and thought about films, but then I went into writing. Becket is something that's definitely on the cards. We have to see where that fits in the schedule, because it's a big picture and I have a lot of writing obligations at the moment. I'm wary of anything with a budget over a certain amount.
Oftentimes when people make movies about the '80s, they go back and look at '80s films, [but] those look nothing like the '80s. It's some watered-down version of reality.
I said, 'I'm going to the United States to study with Stella Adler and do movies because nobody here has done it and my passion is films. ' But I came here and I didn't speak English, I didn't have a green card, I didn't know I had to have an agent, I couldn't drive, I was dyslexic.
The more we can be honest about ourselves as filmmakers, than the more we can be honest with people who see the films.
A lot of student films in art shows are samey. It's a look at the life of someone making these boring films.
I love animated films when they are good, because they do bring a lot of emotion and heart that's very difficult to get in a live action film.
African films should be thought of as offering as many different points of view as the film of any other different continent. Nobody would say that French film is all European film, or Italian film is all European film. And in the same way that those places have different filmmakers that speak to different issues, all the countries in Africa have that too.
The one thing in my films, I only kill people who need to be killed, or killers killing killers. And I believe that the violence is very justifiable.
I've been so fortunate throughout my career, when I was doing theater, more theater than anything else, and when I was doing films that I got a chance just to do a broad range of things.
When I started in films, it never really occurred to me that I could make a career out of acting.
You can act in five, six, or seven films in the time it takes to direct one film.
A lot of the films I do go down brilliantly critically and win awards, but not a lot of people see them.