In the theater it's about taking time in a musical segment a pause in a musical way and then moving on.

But you know if you live an affluent lifestyle there are all types of trappings that are there that you have to be cognizant of and you've got to try and communicate freely and gain understanding about and then keep moving on because you know sometimes lifestyles are chosen for us as opposed to us choosing them.

I mean don't forget the earth's about five thousand million years old at least. Who can afford to live in the past?

What's that line from TS Eliot? To arrive at the place where you started but to know it for the first time. I'm able to write about a breakup from a different place. Same brokenness. Same rock-bottom. But a little more informed now I'm older. Thank God for growing up.

The thing about movies these days is that the commerce end of it is so inflated and financiers are just expecting this enormous return on their investment.

Unfortunately 'chick flick' has become a term to describe most movies that I don't even like. They're these movies that yes have women in them but they really don't reflect who women are and there's something kind of silly or shallow or gossipy about them.

The really courageous and bold thing is to make movies about human behaviour.

I like movies about longing and desperation and dark and light things stories about people struggling to raise children and to have relationships and be intimate with each other.

In America we have so many movies and so much media about the Islamic world the sub-continental world but it's not a conversation it's a monologue. It's always from one point of view. 'If we don't tell our own stories no one will tell them' is my mantra.

Cinema is entertainment and people go to the movies because they want to feel good and forget about everything.

I think it would be fun to write about movies again.

I've directed seven movies and know a thing or two about dealing with unexpected crises.

If you go to Sundance the experience that I've had there as a viewer is... there's like a hundred movies there and you've got to figure out what movies are sold out what can you see. Sometimes you go to see movies that you don't know anything about because it just works into your schedule.

Success is not something I've wrapped my brain around. If people go to those movies then yes that's true big-time success. If not it's much ado about nothing.

I want people to think about movies and how we watch them. Let them know it's okay to question the structure or how we're sometimes duped into a false sense of normalcy. Most of all I want people to question the old standard practices of 'This is how the structure of something should work ' or 'This is how a character must behave.'

Whenever I think about movies I always look at that art process as having the best of a lot of worlds. Because if you watch a great film you have a musical element to it not just on the scoring but in the way that the shots are edited - that has music and rhythm and time.

But when you're writing a script - for me anyway - you have to sort of create an enforced innocence. You have to divest yourself of worrying about a lot of stuff like what movies are hot what movies are not hot what the budget of this movie might be.

I'm always happy when I hear about people selling records or selling books or selling movies. It makes me proud of them.

Movies are about escape.

You just never know when movies are going to take off or not. The lucky thing about this was that it didn't cost a lot of money and therefore there wasn't loads of pressure on me.

I wanted to keep exploring... I'm not about to choose a series of movies in which I can use the same bag of tricks and style that I used in the first film.

All that running around in my underwear put money in my pockets. I can focus on working in interesting movies without having to worry about supporting myself.

Everybody gets typecast in movies but you have to make wise choices. I'd say around 90 percent of movie casting is about the way you look so you have to fight that. If producers had their way I'd only be in action films but I'm interested in a more varied career than that.

I didn't know this about myself but when 'Pirates of the Caribbean' came out I realised that I didn't enjoy a huge amount of recognition. I didn't react to it well but I think life is about finding out who you are and what you like. So I started doing independent movies and art-house films instead.