I negotiate my deals with a loaded shotgun. They were not on the set of the film.

Before she married my father, my mother was a film reviewer for The Akron Beacon Journal - a small newspaper.

I like to rehearse with the actors scenes that are not in the script and will not be in the film because what we're really doing is trying to establish their character, and good acting to me is about reacting.

I didn't get the degree because in my last year, for my thesis film I made a feature called Permanent Vacation and they'd given me a scholarship, the Louis B Mayer fellowship and they made a mistake.

I wanted to make an Indian character who wasn't either a) the savage that must be eliminated, the force of nature that's blocking the way for industrial progress, or b) the noble innocent that knows all and is another cliche. I wanted him to be a complicated human being.

I always think the Sex Pistols and the Ramones as very, very important because they stripped things down.