I'm a big kid I'm a kid at heart so I still love the classic family films such as the great Warner Bros film 'Willy Wonka and the Chocolate Factory' - not the remake but the original. It's still one of the best movies hands down ever made and of course that goes back to the ingenuity of the characters and the storyline.

In anything I've ever written all the characters sound like me which I don't think is a bad thing. It makes sense. But I had always admired filmmakers who made movies that didn't sound like them at all.

I'll tell you what I really enjoy. We all go to the movies we all watch television we know what they're about how they work. When the main character is a cop or a spy it's very exciting but I also very much enjoy when the main characters are nobodies - a trucker.

You see so many earnest characters in movies all the time everyone has a purpose.

I'm a big fan of vampire movies generally and that sort of tradition of characters.

My childhood was influenced by the roles my father played in his movies. Whether Abraham Lincoln or Tom Joad in the 'Grapes of Wrath ' his characters communicated certain values which I try to carry with me to this day.

Yeah I mean the material directors the other cast and if you think you can do something with the character then you do it and go from there. I am looking forward to doing some smaller movies.

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

There are characters in movies who I call 'film characters.' They don't exist in real life. They exist to play out a scenario. They can be in fantastic films but they are not real characters what happens to them is not lifelike.

I'm trying to figure myself out through my movies. Whether it's big stuff like what we're doing here or little stuff like 'Why aren't I happier?' With every film I feel like I'm apologising for something. I feel I'm most successful when I'm looking for something that embarrasses me about my character that I'd like to expose.

I like the idea of movies having a magic element. How many times have you seen an actor in a movie who you know only as the character? It's wonderful isn't it?

My favorite characters are the ones that are the most successful movies.

Most movies once the action starts there's no more characters. You say a couple of dumb lines and then there's just explosions until the end.

What I remember when I started to write was how I couldn't wait to get up in the morning to get to my characters.

When you have to get into the character each morning give it your voice your face it was torture.

I started writing morning pages just to keep my hand in you know just because I was a writer and I didn't know what else to do but write. And then one day as I was writing a character came sort of strolling in and I realized Oh my God I don't have to be just a screenwriter. I can write novels.

You come before me this morning with clean hands and clean collars. I want you to have clean tongues clean manners clean morals and clean characters.

We all wake up in the morning wanting to live our lives the way we know we should. But we usually don't in small ways. That's what makes a character like Batman so fascinating. He plays out our conflicts on a much larger scale.

Each morning my characters greet me with misty faces willing though chilled to muster for another day's progress through the dazzling quicksand the marsh of blank paper.

Money is always on its way somewhere. What you do with it while it is in your keeping and the direction you send it in say much about you. Your treatment of and respect for money how you make it and how you spend it reflect your character.

I admire directors so much I find them incredible: they manage such a huge number of people of different characters think of the money involved.

As one digs deeper into the national character of the Americans one sees that they have sought the value of everything in this world only in the answer to this single question: how much money will it bring in?

Country was about character. Country's changed because of monsters like Clear Channel who bought up all the stations and sliced them up into formats. Our demographic is now the soccer mom.

I was thinking that when I have children that I should always dress as a character for them so they think their mom is Alice in Wonderland or Cinderella. It would be totally messed up!