I was influenced by European movies, old Fellini, old Kurosawa - any sort of foreign film.

And then we watched an amazing number of movies from the late '60s and '70s, which is my favorite time, and we studied their camera movements, their stocks, the way they lit stuff, the colors they used.

That's why I'm really trying to produce my own stuff. This film was so good, because I produced it myself, and developed it, and made it with New Line, which is a smaller studio, so I was in control of a lot of stuff that I wasn't in control of for my other films.

I never consciously do any work directly influenced from any movie, unless I'm doing a parody.

There are a lot of films that are drug dramas, and we didn't want to tell Scarface again.

The thing that's great about those guys at Miramax is the Weinstein brothers. They are the two funniest guys I've ever met in my life.