“I never see things I make in the same way that the audience does. You can never do that.”

Having grown up far, far away in a small country town in Australia, I was only slightly aware of hip-hop.

When I was growing up you would see big American films that really mythologised their landscape, that really showed the vastness and the drama of their country.

The race is long but in the end it is only with YOURSELF.

There’s a whole system in Hollywood where the director never speaks to the studio, but I like to engage them in a discussion. I listen.

In terms of the mechanics of story, myth is an intriguing one because we didn’t make myth up; myth is an imprinture of the human condition.

I wouldn’t take a directing job if I didn’t think it was enriching life.

I really believe musical form will go on. There’s got to be a way of making musical form in cinema live again.

So, what is creative freedom? We can make what we want, how we want. The only constraint is: not for any budget.

When you’re in theater or the circus or film – to me it’s all one – affairs happen. People fall in love.

One of the great things about Sydney is that it has a great acceptance of everyone and everything. It’s an incredibly tolerant city, a city with a huge multicultural basis.

I’ve always loved the old epics that tell a simple emotional story, whether it’s the tumultuous relationship between Rhett and Scarlett or Lawrence of Arabia’s passion to get lost in a faraway place.

I always have a point of view. It may not be right, but it’s my own.

I am always worried when someone says, ‘This is perfect.’

Advice is a form of nostalgia.

I mean the future has become old fashioned.

The party is a true art form in Sydney and people practise it a great deal. You can really get quite lost in it.

there are two ways of speaking an audience will always like: one is, to tell them what they don’t understand; and the other is, to tell them what they’re used to.

It was a revelation for me, in a practical sense, that you could write in an African language and still reach an audience beyond that language through the art of translation.

We have to stretch out the audience. It can’t be this narrow – we have to stretch out the point of view.

What audiences love with series is that they can invest in characters for such a long period of time, and it’s the same for actors. You can truly tell your story; then it’s done.

As an actor, it’s very interesting to make the audience love you while you are doing horrendous things.

The whole duty of a writer is to please and satisfy himself, and the true writer always plays to an audience of one.

Everyone seems to have internalized the fact that you can say anything you want at a televised debate, and only a tiny fraction of the audience will ever see a fact-check. So why not claim the moon is square?

But theater, because of its nature, both text, images, multimedia effects, has a wider base of communication with an audience. That’s why I call it the most social of the various art forms.