The influence of John Hughes is fully felt in the melodrama 'Donnie Darko.' This first film written and directed by Richard Kelly is a wobbly cannonball of a movie that tries to go Mr. Hughes one better; it's like a Hughes version of a novel by Gabriel Garcia Marquez.
We've gotten to a point where it costs so much money to make a movie that directors and filmmakers feel they have to make sure that everybody gets it. And that's an unfortunate development, I think, in a lot of narratives floating around in the film industry.
I've never actually seen a Star Trek, but I have seen an Alien movie.
If a movie requires the lead actor to spend a good chunk of his onscreen time talking to himself, and Popeye is unavailable because of contractual disputes, it's hard to do better than Johnny Depp.
I'd love to be able to do a really good English movie.
When I shoot actors, I have that dilemma. I want the actor to be good, and sometimes I have to push them to a place that isn't pleasant. I always think: 'Is it worth doing for the sake of the movie?' But I have to remember the bigger picture.
On a movie, you often work fourteen-, sixteen-hour days, six days a week, for six months. It is so easy to let up because of fatigue.
I'm a fat kid on the inside. I love food so much, and I fluctuate about 25 to 30 pounds between movies. I feel like I have to do a chess movie that requires very little movement at some point, just so I can eat pizza and play chess on the beach all day.
It's a clique and I think a clique exists in every business. There's a circle of people that are guaranteed to open a movie and we all know their names and whether they're right or wrong for the role.
I was always longing to do, emotionally and physically, what my male counterparts always got to do. I just felt envious, every time I saw a movie that I was in awe of, and it was usually a male lead. And those kinds of roles weren't available. They just weren't being written.
All I mean is, I'm not the kind of audience comedy directors want at a test screening because I seldom laugh, and if I do, it's not very loud. That doesn't mean I don't like the movie.
Every actor you learn from, take something from everyone - big actor or not. Whether they're big movie stars or not doesn't really matter.
I'd seen my dad on stage, and that was fine, but the real excitement was - that was my dad. Even now, when I see his films, he's always my favourite person in the movie.
You know how when you read a book and it becomes a movie, and it's different than you pictured? In some ways, acting is a lot like that.
I don't know what your childhood was like, but we didn't have much money. We'd go to a movie on a Saturday night, then on Wednesday night my parents would walk us over to the library. It was such a big deal, to go in and get my own book.
If it's a real bad score, then it can ruin a movie for me, or, at least, it will draw a lot of my attention to the score.
As a director, you can't stop a guy if he thinks something's hysterical, because if you do, then he'll get depressed because he thinks he didn't come up with a good joke. So if a guy's going on some run and it's killing him, and he thinks it's hilarious, you gotta do enough so that he thinks you can use it in the movie.
I think that, in the beginning, you think, 'I want to be the biggest movie star in the world.' And then, with the more movies you make, you are like, 'I don't know if I want to be that anymore. I think what I am looking for is something different.' I like acting, but a lot of times, stardom comes with a lot of strings attached.
I was a 'Laurel and Hardy' nut. I got to know Laurel at the end of his life, and it was a great thrill for me. He left me his bow tie and derby and told me that if they ever made a movie about him, he'd want me to play him.
What's exciting about watching a movie, when it's finished, is you sometimes you don't recognize yourself, and that's when I'm really proud.
Of course, when strangers see me, they're star-struck because of who I am, but my friends take me as a friend because I'm their friend - not because I'm a movie star.
I spent a chunk of time in New Orleans doing the movie 'Free State Of Jones,' getting to work with Matthew McConaughey, and also did 'Concussion,' where I got to work with Will Smith.
Sometimes you see a movie and you can really feel that it's an actor putting in a performance. Someone said 'cut' and they're back in their trailer having a coffee or getting their hair done.
As a kid, I had a Beatles poster and a Bela Lugosi as Dracula poster, so both worlds always appealed to me. Horror allows you to do things as a composer than you're able to do in no other style of movie. The music has to be aggressive. You can't tiptoe around. It has to be incredibly focused dramatically - no time for second thoughts.
'Rosemary's Baby' is a real New York movie, even though you wouldn't necessarily think of it as one, though I do.
As a writer, Chris Columbus was a big influence. 'The Goonies' was the first movie I ever saw that kids speak normally and not imagined how kids would talk. Always a big fan of Chris Columbus' dialogue and storytelling.
It's nice to create a character, not just within two scenes, but within the journey of a whole movie. It's fun to do that.
The best space movie in my view is 'Apollo 13.' That's just the way it happened.
Female movie stars from the pre-Code era of Hollywood, like Mae West, could be so raunchy and witty before they were edited. Sometimes they could go further in their wit than we go now.
When you hear someone talking in a restaurant or overhear someone talking on the street, there are very different patterns of conversation than you would hear in a conventional movie.
I did a movie with Leonardo DiCaprio, and his skill level was eons ahead of mine. It was really more like an abattoir - he just slaughtered my character over and over again.
I auditioned for a movie recently, and when I went in, the producer said he'd told one of its stars, Naomi Watts, that he was auditioning me, and she'd said, 'She's so funny; she's a great actress - you should hire her.' What a lovely, kind, and supportive thing to do for another woman.
I have never made money selling records. I have never really made money touring, either, or with merchandise, surprisingly. But I do make money by just having my songs in the background of television shows or in commercials or movie trailers. That's been really good.
Ultimately when I throw myself behind a movie, I have to really believe in that director's vision.
I learn so much more in an ensemble movie.
The premise of Nossiter in 'Mondovino' would have been a lot more accurate when I started writing about wine in 1978 than when the movie was made in 2003. When I started, I was enormously critical of California wines, and I thought the entire wine industry was on a real slippery slope.
