I don’t go back and look at the monitor between every take; I wait until I feel like we finally got it right: “Let me stop and look at that last one on the monitor.”
If you think Hollywood is depressing and corrupt, politics is really depressing and corrupt — and fueled even more than Hollywood by money — if that’s possible.
When you hire great actors, you’re lucky, so you just try to create an atmosphere where they can succeed and relax and take risks. You’re happy that you get to watch them at the monitor and that your name is on the director’s chair.
It wasn’t my childhood fantasy to work with Truffaut or be in obscure films. I like Midnight Run better than I like The Bicycle Thief. It was films like Die Hard and Bladerunner that made me want to be an actor.
I think we all like to see ourselves as good dads, but there’s also that fear, ‘Oh, I don’t want to be like my father,’ or, ‘I hope my kid doesn’t turn out like me.’ You know, I have those feelings too. So the key is optimism.
How about the more than 1 billion Muslim people in the U.S, who aren’t fanatical, who don’t punch women, who just want to go to school, have some sandwiches, and pray five times a day?
Sure, I suffered a lot. But it’s not like the end of the world and it’s not who I am. I lead quite a pleasant life and I’m able to divorce a perceived reality from my actual experience of life.
