Over the years, if you look at the films of people like Billy Wilder, Preston Sturges, Frank Capra, their supporting characters, even if it's a doorman with two lines, always seem three-dimensional. To me, that's a sign of good storytelling.
I knew Billy Wilder socially and would have loved to work with him.
'Sunset Boulevard' by Billy Wilder, it's one of my favorite films. I love all the movies from the 1950s.
I'm not going to have a perfect career. It's better to be Billy Wilder and make lots of movies and have five or six great ones than to make so few movies that when you make a bad one it crushes you.
A movie like 'The Apartment' is beautifully directed, but you can't put your finger on why it's such a good movie. It just is, because of all these things that Billy Wilder is subtly doing. That level of filmmaking is something I aspire to.
Billy Wilder is really is a heavy influence on Bound. We felt that film noir was a genre where you could create a really contained story. We wanted to be on a set as much as we could to get the kind of style level we were looking for.
Any story that Billy Wilder told, you can tell in a Western.
I used to eat lunch with Billy Wilder when I first came out here.
I'm influenced by those '40s, '50s, and '60s films: things like 'The Apartment' - I was a big fan of Billy Wilder.
As far as directors, I'm a big fan of any kind of Billy Wilder stuff. Anything he does.
