I learn more from the audience than I can from anybody else. Not from what they write on the scorecards, but how they respond to the movie while they're watching it - where they laugh and where they react.
I don't have any regrets.
I've watched 'Being There' over 50 times, and every time I watch it, I love every frame. I just wish I had directed it myself.
My mom had me when she was 16, and I was an only child, which is probably why I received a lot of love and didn't miss that my father wasn't around.
Miami Beach - that's where I grew up, in a middle-class Jewish family led by my maternal grandfather. Me, my great-grandmother - a Holocaust survivor, who was my roommate - my grandparents, my mom and her brother all shared a four-bedroom house.
They say your childhood influences your tastes and interests, or your approach if you're an artist. So what you create, whatever you saw, whatever your childhood was like - it influences how you're going to end up.
Having love in your heart doesn't count for much if what comes out of your mouth is ugly and bigoted.
In my public life, I'm just a guy who enjoys having fun.
I'm not invited to the Vanity Fair dinner where they watch the Oscars - or even the Oscars themselves - so I sit at home and watch it with a bunch of close friends.
I've been a book collector since I was young, since I was a kid.
I want to print books by people in the film industry.
I'm not going to turn down an Oscar, but I'm not strategizing for one.
I love that feeling of going into a packed theater.
Before I did 'Rush Hour,' I was a big fan of Jackie Chan movies and I had seen all of them.
I look for stuff that I'm passionate about.
I'm not tied to budgets. I'm tied to the story that I want to tell, and how much it's going to cost is up to whatever the economic situation of the studio is.
When I do short films, I try to do something completely out of my comfort zone, out of my element.
Producing is making films without having to work sometimes. It's still making films, but it's a different job.
When you're the director, you kinda do all the work.
You can't show a four-hour movie in a theater, really.
