You can't intellectually purge yourself of who you are. Whatever that is, it's going to come out in the wash, the film wash. What you are is going to be relevant, if not to yourself, to the movies you make.

You shouldn't dream your film, you should make it!

Bloated budgets are ruining Hollywood - these pictures are squeezing all the other types of movies out of Hollywood. It's disastrous.

I like the smell of film. I just like knowing there's film going through the camera.

My film refuses to be a pamphlet. My screenwriter, Tony Kushner, and I were hoping to make it a visceral, emotional and intellectual experience, combined in such a way that it will help you get in touch with what you feel are the questions the film poses. The most important thing about peace in the Middle East is that people surrender their absolute certainty about what's going on.

There are three movies that I am exceptionally proud of in my life, and I rarely commit to a list of films that I like, that I've made, ... but these are the three films that I was passionately connected to. The first was 'ET,' the second 'Schindler's List,' and third is 'Saving Private Ryan.'