I feel very protected when I see a movie. That's why I like making violent movies or radical movies.
I'm a huge horror movie fan. Beyond belief.
The thing about chemistry, it's sort of you get along with a person and then sort of if the movie does well, then you have great chemistry.
So each of the commercials- basically it's an action movie cliché. "Bus" is very much inspired by Speed obviously, where you have a high-jacked out of control bus, and you have heroes who are trying to jump from a moving vehicle to the bus and they just can't do it because the moving vehicle can't get close enough, because all these VW cars have this distancing technology, which is really fantastic.
Usually they have to deal with a dubbing situation or subtitles, and it takes you out of the experience. That's why we wanted to make something that felt really immersive for Chiniese audience, but it takes a lot of work to make 2 versions of a movie!
I'm a film guy. I love it. When I read the screenplay, I knew that there would be no HD camera that could achieve the look that I wanted for this film. I wanted it to be dirty, and 16mm provides all of that with the look and the grain. That's what I worked for, and that's what I wanted, and that's how I'd seen the movie in my mind.
I'd much rather fail than do something like 'The Chorus Line' movie, sanitized and Hollywoodized.
I wasn't going to have fun doing a teen movie again.
Any jokes I make I try to make sure it's on story and helps the characters and makes sense with the movie.
I have to admit that when I watch a movie in which there is no moral context for the violence - I find that offensive. I think that's potentially damaging to society.
I don't know of an actor that the Coen brothers would come to and say, "Hey, I've got a movie for you to be in, if you want to do it," that would say, "No. " That's the truth.
3D is quite a lot more advanced in animated movies; for live-action movies we're just taking baby steps, we're just in the beginning.
There's really no difference between what I do and what a male filmmaker might do. I mean we all try to make our days, we all try to give the best performances we can, we try to make our budget, we try to make the best movie we possibly can.
I feel like my brain is more geared towards a novel than it is to a movie.
Yes. Otherwise I could have done a lot of Hollywood movies. After Crouching Tiger I got a lot of offers, but I turned them down because they were all victim roles - poor girls sold to America to be a wife or whatever. I know I have the ability to go deeper, to take on more original roles than that.
It is odd there are many movies with many men. But generally movies have one woman, or maybe the older woman and the younger girl.
I don't know what would be antithetical to do on the other side, maybe a Tyler Perry movie or something. No, there are very few comedies that live in between that. Or you're doing some kid thing like a Jim Carrey movie with animated something that's like that. Yeah, I've wanted to do them. I like doing them. I did Talk to Me. That was pretty much a comedy.
Even when you're acting with a producing hat, when you're in every scene, you're really conscious of trying to make everybody as good as they are, because ultimately you're trying to make the best movie possible.
Focus group was helpful in the way it always is when you make movies, especially with anything funny. You can find the right edit or the right beat. In terms of cutting and rhythm, I think it's essential to screen your movie before you lock picture.
Sometimes, I think I could have been a major movie star with the vast mansion and staff. I look at my Volvo and think it could be a limousine. I think of the roles I turned down. But then I wouldn't have had any children.