Sometimes I get insecure about being a real director because I look at the great directors, and they have such command. But maybe that keeps me critical of myself. Maybe it keeps me moving forward.
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.
There is currency to celebrity, or celebrity is a currency. You can spend it in a lot of ways, or you can squander it. You can be taxed, as well. I really started thinking long and hard about how to use that currency as long as I had it.
Just because a lot of people know something nominal doesn’t make it important. A lot of people know what a pencil sharpener is, but that doesn’t make it the most important invention of the 20th century.
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 hate the whole reluctant sex-symbol thing. It’s such bull. You see these dudes greased up, in their underwear, talking about how they don’t want to be a sex symbol.
Studios are used to have an investment in you, an actual, literal investment in an actor. You paid them some money, you had a contract with them and you were almost like a commodity.
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.
