“Movies are like magic tricks.”

“It's difficult to do a genre film well, and it doesn't matter if you're talking vampire movies or 'Dawn of the Dead' or 'The Thing' or 'Escape From New York.' Those kind of movies, they understand what the old-school B-movie is supposed to be, they get the throwback of it.”

“I was always attracted to science fiction movies.”

“I was going to make movies. I was the one in the family who was always rolling the video camera, making movies of my brothers around town, and then screening them for my parents. I still would love to make movies someday... that's something that really means a lot to me, and I know I'll have the chance to do it one day.”

“I mean, I love L.A. - I love living here. But I wish that we could make things without the need to hit a home run every single time. It's a unique thing to Hollywood that if you don't do that every time, then you're considered a failure. But it's like, 'Well, are you making movies to be successful? Or are you making movies to learn something?'”

“A film is - or should be - more like music than like fiction. It should be a progression of moods and feelings. The theme, what's behind the emotion, the meaning, all that comes later.”

“People used to be funny about approaching me, but now they seem to think I'm as sane as anyone who's done what I've done in movies can be.”

“I don't make movies thinking: 'Oh, this is going to be a huge box-office hit.'”

“At the time I came along, Hollywood's idea of teen movies meant there had to be a lot of nudity, usually involving boys in pursuit of sex, and pretty gross overall. Either that or a horror movie. And the last thing Hollywood wanted in their teen movies was teenagers!”

“I remember saying goodbye to my father the night he left to join the Navy. He didn't have to. He was older than other servicemen and had a family to support but he wanted to be a part of the fight against fascism, not just make movies about it. I admired this about him.”

“If you're not a real chameleon of an actor and if you're not one of those guys who can really shape-change themselves all the time, one of the ways to keep pushing yourself and keep changing is to be in different kinds of movies.”

“On movies, you have a lot of stylists that get things too pretty. Everything gets steamed and ironed. It's just not the way we really behave.”

“Movies are open doors, and at every door, I change character and life.”

“Movies are not about the weekend that they're released, and in the grand scheme of things, that's probably the most unimportant time of a film's life.”

“If there's specific resistance to women making movies, I just choose to ignore that as an obstacle for two reasons: I can't change my gender, and I refuse to stop making movies.”

“When you're on your deathbed, you probably aren't counting the movies you've made.”

“Making movies is a very different experience in a lot of ways. It's difficult when you're used to owning the copyright and having a landlord's possessory rights - I rent my plays to the companies that do them and, if I'm upset, I can pull the play. But the only two directors I've worked with are pretty great.”

“The reason I chose the movies that I did was based on where they were being filmed.”

“I've been really enjoying writing articles and writing music and music for movies.”

“I like to think of myself as a fairly educated human being, but I'm a very uneducated actor when it comes to movies, directors, producers, actors for that matter.”

“I don't know what has happened to movies, but lately every movie is at least 20 minutes too long. It used to be that if you were three hours long it was because it was epic - a movie about Gandhi something with very important subject matters.”