It's a funny thing: You want so badly for people to see what you do - you're proud of it - and I like the effect that movies have on people. But the attention can also make me uncomfortable.

I had to act in a school play when I was about ten years old. I really didn't want to do it. But everyone had to do it so I didn't have a choice. A talent agent came and watched it and later gave me some work. It's funny because I'd always known that I wanted a movie career. I just didn't think that I would be in the movies.

I don't like comedy. I like funny things. I don't like comedy. Like comedy movies are just 'Oh Jesus.'

I'm a pretty funny guy and I would love to do a comedy with a bunch of funny guys - movie-star guys where they could help me through it.

Funny things happen to you in movies for silly reasons.

'Dirty Rotten Scoundrels' is a good one because it not only turned out I think to be a really funny movie but it was also a delight to shoot. We were in the South of France working with Glenne Headly and Michael Caine and Frank Oz the director - who were just fun.

I'm not a real movie star. I've still got the same wife I started out with twenty-eight years ago.

You make a movie for 9k for the freedom it allows you.

I like movies that pop that have a little bit of candy on that freedom to have a little bit of extra fun but are rooted in real behaviour. Rooted in cause and effect never violating reality.

Working with David Cronenberg or Darren Aronofsky or even Steven Soderbergh isn't really like a typical Hollywood movie. These are true artists and have a certain amount of freedom when they work and they're more like independent filmmakers making their way through big studios.

American movies and music deliver themes of freedom innocence and power that appeal to others - partly because America itself was put together out of a multiplicity of national traditions.

Don't give me any money don't give me any people but give freedom and I'll give you a movie that looks gigantic.

I really care about this stuff I care about movies and you just have to be strong and don't be stupid freedom of choice is a big responsibility and I'm lucky enough not to have to just take any movie to pay the rent so there's no need to be greedy.

I had a job at a movie theater for like a year and a half and then a job at a health food store for like two years. Those were the only two jobs I ever had.

You start making movies and people start seeing when you go to places and all of a sudden you are getting clothes for free and all of a sudden you are getting food for free.

With nine degrees of warming computer models project that Australia will look like a disaster movie. Habitats for most vertebrates will vanish. Water supply to the Murray-Darling Basin will fall by half severely curtailing food production.

I am a filmmaker. That is all I've ever been. You know Martin Scorsese makes films about the mob. And I make movies about food.

Food was always a big part of my life. My grandfather was one of 14 kids and his parents had a pasta factory so as a kid he and his siblings would sell pasta door to door. After he became a movie producer he opened up De Laurentiis Food Stores - one in Los Angeles and one in New York.

If I'm making a movie and get hungry I call time-out and eat some crackers.

I only make movies to finance my fishing'.

At this point I don't get hired a lot because people don't think I could finance a movie.

I don't buy into any of that hogwash. They put that out to sell tickets. It's just a classic horror movie with the Greek drama formula of good versus evil and lots of fear.

I think that my vampires in general were influenced by my being allowed to watch the Hammer vampire films. Vampire Circus also shown as Circus of Fear was one of those movies.

Studios because they are investing a great deal of money in movies they want a guarantee that when they hire somebody that person can deliver for them. Everything is fear based so they pigeonhole people. But I've written everything from Westerns to sci-fi to dramedy I've done it all.