“I think we are seeing a radical shift in the business in general. The studios are making much more of the real big extravaganzas and there are other kinds of films that are coming out. I think you are going to begin to see more diversification that we’ve seen in the past.”

We’re never going to be the ultimate-insider look. You can do 50 insider looks at this Hollywood business, and the satire didn’t intrigue me. I think others can do that.

I always think that there is the good and the bad of it all.

I worked at a local television station and I got a chance to direct and do all those things – worked kiddie shows, Ranger House show with the hand puppets and things like that.

I thought a great line in the What Just Happened movie said, “We’re just the mayonnaise.”

I think it’s a promising time which will show a lot of diversification that we’ve seen in the past.

When I began to think about the head of the family, the storyteller, the rise of television which became the new storyteller, the break-up of the American family as an idea and then Avalon came.

Studios just sometimes make decisions on their own that you’re always flabbergasted by. It just happens that way for whatever reason – not even pointing fingers, it just is.

Craig Nelson who is an actor and is in a show called Coach in the United States. We began to do some improvisational stuff and we used to get laughs and things.

I think certain movies work and that is part of the magic of it all. We can’t truly define why something succeeds.

All I try to do is create an atmosphere that seems comfortable enough, that it removes tension and everyone feels free. If they feel free then behaviour happens, small moments happen and that’s what ultimately works the best for me.

It’s always hard to explain why an audience ultimately responds to a movie.

You have a movie and it proves itself and then certain things happen.

First of all, just to get Diner made would have been an achievement in that I got a chance to direct.

There was a time when I said, “I’m going to go do a television thing,” after doing all these theatrical films, and heard, “Television? Why are you going to go back to television?” It’s an interesting place.

I don’t know that you can do an absurdist film and just have everybody embrace it in terms of filling out cards. I just don’t think it happens. So you have to prepare an audience.

I don’t know that you can do it as a satire. I mean, the business is crazy enough as it is. It’s like doing Wag The Dog – we took a thing that was almost completely absurd on one level, and then ultimately those things came about.

Somebody’s real voice is probably the hardest one that somebody could attempt.

The world’s like a ride in a fairground & when you choose to go on it you think it’s real, that’s how powerful our minds are

In India, there are real consequences to inattention; drivers who jeopardize pedestrians can be lynched on the spot.

Brooklyn was a dream. All the things that happened there just couldn’t happen. It was all dream stuff. Or was it all real and true and was it that she, Francie, was the dreamer?

I am not being facetious when I say that the real enemies in this country are the Pentagon and its pals in big business.

People give me money and I don’t know why, my real collection plate is an empty cup held by a homeless guy.

Hillary Clinton has been portrayed as robotic, someone who is trying to approximate real human emotion.

From here on out, I am only interested in what is real. Real people, real feelings, that’s it. That’s all I’m interested in.