I want all of my films to belong to me.
My flag is always flying. My shingle is always out. I'm always looking for movie ideas.
The hardest part of this whole movie-making endeavor is finding ideas.
A book suggests a whole world and story that I could have never thought of in a million years.
Life mixes tones all the time.
The kindest thing a director can do is look with open eyes at everything.
When you're a houseguest and you leave, it's nice to straighten something up or send your hosts a useful gift. And when you leave the planet, it's nice to have made a positive contribution.
I like to think of film-making not just as an act of personal self-aggrandisement but rather as an act of public service.
I guess maybe I try to make movies that are closer to real life than are many Hollywood movies. But I still try to stay within a commercial narrative, a contemporary American vernacular.
I always wanted 'Sideways' to be like a great 1960s Italian film.
The novel succeeds on terms exclusive to literature. A good film succeeds on terms exclusive to the cinema. That's why so many bad novels can become good movies, like 'Jaws' or 'The Godfather.'
Each one of my movies becomes easier to get off the ground.
I get asked, 'How can you have such failures in your films?' Well, what else is life about? There's some sense of constant failure in something. Humor gives you a distance from it.
Anytime you cast a movie and you need someone famous in the lead part, you're a prisoner of whoever happens to be famous in the six-month window in which you're trying to get a film financed.
I'm so not interested in producing, other than doing my own work, producing my own films. I only do it as favors, for other people to get their films made.
The actors are the greatest executors of tone in a film. They're the most important cinematic component.
The best actors are always the ones who've directed as well, as they understand all the problems you face.
I like voice-over in films, and most of my films have been voice-over films.
I don't want all of American cinema to be big cartoons that are just made to be digested by the entire world.
I don't feel despair because I am able to make the films I want to make, and that gives me hope.
