I have a lot of Chinese fans who buy my movies on the street and watch them, and I'm OK with it. I'm not OK with it in other places, but if the government's going to censor me, then I want the people to see it in any way they can.

My mom took me to see Carnal Knowledge and The Wild Bunch and all these kind of movies when I was a kid.

I just grew up watching a lot of movies. I'm attracted to this genre and that genre, this type of story, and that type of story. As I watch movies I make some version of it in my head that isn't quite what I'm seeing - taking the things I like and mixing them with stuff I've never seen before.

To me, movies and music go hand in hand. When I'm writing a script, one of the first things I do is find the music I'm going to play for the opening sequence.

When people ask me if I went to film school I tell them, 'no, I went to films.'

I'm not a Hollywood basher because enough good movies come out of the Hollywood system every year to justify its existence, without any apologies.