I start with a mood or an idea that comes from a personal place emotionally, and the narrative concepts come much later.
I think true economic class unhappiness comes from when across the street someone has a new Cadillac and you can't get that.
At least in America, the narrative is I'm a Cannes favorite. But, in fact, I've had my best experience in Venice, both with the audience and the jury.
The word 'operatic' is often misused to mean over the top, where someone is over-emoting. And that does a terrible disservice because 'operatic' to me means a commitment and a belief to the emotion of the moment that is sincere.
I feel like it's a real shame that my generation doesn't make an appearance at the opera.
It's weird, because American films in the 1930s and '40s, particularly melodramas, were made for woman, from Bette Davis to Joan Crawford to Barbara Stanwyck to Katherine Hepburn, and for some reason we've taken a step backward in this sense.
Melodrama and melodramatic are not the same thing, and often people make the mistake of confusing the two.
I remember as a little kid, I would always feel comfortable if the light in the crack of my parents' door was on at night. When it went off, that meant they were asleep. Then that terror and the fear of being by myself started to creep in.
For me, I get a part of an idea here and a little bit of an idea there, and then finally it accumulates into a movie.
I had written 'Two Lovers' before we started shooting 'We Own the Night.'
I feel that The American Dream is this fallacy that you come to the United States and win lotto. That's a disservice to The American Dream because the American Dream is worth striving for. And it's not easy.
The ending shot of 'Queen Christina' with Greta Garbo is amazing. She's at the head of the ship, and she's been through so much, and the camera gets so close to her face. That really sticks out for me.
The life of a film is very strange. Once the film is done, you wish you could forget about it and move on.
When I was younger, I felt it essential to see every movie ever made. Now I feel as though I've got to read every book, see every art show, watch every play and opera and concert and so on. It does not end, and of course there is truth in the old cliche that the more one knows, the more one realizes one knows nothing at all.
I have no interest whatsoever in pursuing acting or becoming a mogul. I love writing and directing; I see those two jobs as the most critical in the making of a film.
I grew up in a semi-attached row house in Queens in New York. And my family and my grandparents and my father's from Brooklyn, and so you're essentially an outer boroughs kid, you're growing up.
It's difficult because Manhattan is so fantastic, and it's 9 miles away, and all these cool rich people live there and have great lives, and you live in a semi-attached row house in Queens.
The opera in Los Angeles is excellent.
I live up Laurel Canyon, and if I want to walk with my son, I have to drive to the park, which is so insane to me.
Americans have always been excellent at making romantic comedies - but dramatically, we don't really try to do it.
