I hate movies that tell people what to think. I'm proud that Democrats thought 'Thank You For Smoking' was their film and Republicans thought it was theirs. I'm proud that pro-choice people thought 'Juno' was their film and pro-life people thought it was theirs.

Being the son of a filmmaker you are aware of a career as a director. You don't think of it as just movies but as a life.

Where I live nobody who's fourteen is having sex and doing major drugs. And I think if you see it in the movies you may be influenced by it. I think it's so important to preserve your innocence.

I used to be prettier than I am but I think I look better now. I was a pretty boy. Particularly in my early movies. I don't like looking at them so much. There's a sort of pretty thing about me.

I think if you do something effectively whether you're the lover or the comic or the action guy or the villain like I play movies are very expensive to make. Chances are you'll get asked to play that part again.

We can now have action movies with two stars where one might be African American and one might be Asian American. One of them doesn't have to be white and the other one doesn't have to be the ethnic sidekick. We're way over that. And I think it's happening in society too.

I think it's more interesting to see people who don't feel appropriately. I relate to that because sometimes I don't feel anything at all for things I'm supposed to and other times I feel too much. It's not always like it is in the movies.

I think we're very complicated and we're capable of all kinds of things and movies don't reflect that.

I tend to think of action movies as exuberant morality plays in which good triumphs over evil.

I think these movies are as much for people of that time as for people who weren't born. For people who weren't born they see how leaders must act under a crisis situation not trying to be re-elected or not trying to check polls that they go from their gut check.

Some people think literature is high culture and that it should only have a small readership. I don't think so... I have to compete with popular culture including TV magazines movies and video games.

You go back to those films of the '40s and '50s and hear the dialogue the way the people played off each other - the wordplay. I think we've really lost that in movies.

I think being self-referential is really narcissistic. Who's to say anybody's even thinking of you that much? But some of these movies that I've done people still recite lines to me even 20 years later.

Movies are movies and I don't think any of them are going to hurt the moral fiber of America and all that nonsense.

My movies just kind of sneak up on you. I don't have to worry too much about what everybody is going to say. Anyway I really don't pay attention to what the world says about my movies. I just care about what my buddies think.

I love movies that make me cry because they're tapping into a real emotion in me and I always think afterwards: how did they do that?

I've been offered lots of movies. There's always some actor who's doing a project and would like to have me do it. But you look at the project and think 'Gee there are a lot of good directors who could do that.' I'd like to do something only I can do.

I do not quote my own movies. I think I would be pretty insufferable if I did.

People need to start to think about the messages that they send in the movies.

I used to love to go to the movies - I'd see two in a row. A few times I even snuck into the second movie after it started... now that I think about it that's kind of like shoplifting! Needless to say I still love going to the movies but I don't sneak in anymore.

And what I like about it is it makes me happy and I think it makes a lot of people happy to go to the movies and to not think about the problems of the day or the problems of tomorrow or the yesterday and just go on for the ride and have the fun of losing oneself in a fantasy.

I think it's better to be involved in one or two movies a year.

I will make action movies I think for a few more years another five years.

I think that's what distinguishes Schmidt really. In the movies now so much of what is appealing to an audience is the dramatic or has to do with science fiction and Schmidt is simply human. There's no melodrama there's no device It's just about a human being.