Alejandro Gonzalez Inarritu

I like the possibility of failure. I don't want to be in a comfortable zone.

I have always considered myself to be spiritual in a way that has less to do with religion and more with an awareness that you have, and the consciousness you have of being alive and the consciousness that you will be dead.

I have a bad reputation, I guess.

I can't understand the conditions of a corporate product being designed and getting millions. I admire it, it's great, but I don't know how to do that. I have to have the wheel.

I see only one requirement you have to have to be a director or any kind of artist: rhythm. Rhythm, for me, is everything. Without rhythm, there's no music. Without rhythm, there's no cinema. Without rhythm, there's no architecture.

As the camera, I try to subordinate every word to be truthful and honest to each character's context.

To shoot a conventional film means that you are always covering yourself. You are putting nets and, in a way, letting bad decisions take over.

For the actors, the talent is to serve the demands that I ask of them, to do it with naturality and truth, and to be honest when we were terrified.

Everyone's terrified of being mediocre. Everyone wants to be special.

Directing non-actors is difficult. Directing actors in a foreign language is even more difficult. Directing non-actors in a language that you yourself don't understand is the craziest thing you can possibly think of.

The cavemen, when they saw the antelopes, they had to scratch them on to the caves because they needed to express the immediacy of what they were being affected by - and I love that. That is why I do what I do. I need to express myself.

Everybody is looking for validation, no matter who you are, and I think that's a need of the human condition - to look for affection or recognition or validation.