I actually studied literature and philosophy. So, when I started making films, I didn't really know what I was doing, and I was too proud and arrogant to learn.

I connect with all of the characters in my films. That's what makes you want to make a film, that you can enter the mindset, the situation, the conflict, the contradictions.

I'm so happy when someone does something original, and there's no focus group or planning committee. If the cinema doesn't get an injection of that once in a while, we're in trouble.

The luxury that I have is I'm not career-minded, I just live from one film to the next. For a time, I was making documentaries, and all my documentaries were winning awards and stuff, and then I lost interest in documentaries.

Three and a half years in L.A. was enough for me. I would love to go back for short bursts if a film opportunity came up, but it's a unique place, and you can reach saturation point. For me it was a place where creative desire and ambition meets desperation. It's in the air; it's palpable - I just didn't want to be around that.

My dad was the baby. When he was born they were already successful. They sent him to business school - he probably would have loved to have been a poet or a writer or something, and he was very creative.

Fine arts education in public schools is really abysmal. The same emphasis should be put on music, theater, dance - anything creative - that's put on math and science.

I'd always tended to regard song lyrics as sort of a bastard medium because they're subjugated under the music. If you were to regard them as poetry, it would be bad, embarrassing, confessional poetry - a lot of the lyrics I love.