Actually, I look the same in real life as I do in the movies.

In dire economic times, movies are relatively inexpensive entertainment for the whole family.

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?

We make the kind of movies we like to watch. I love to laugh. I love to be amazed by how beautiful it is. But I also love to be moved to tears. There's lots of heart in our films.

I made about 56 movies, I think. Not that many.

I have been in a lot of movies, but none of them are critics' darlings, you might say.

And that's why I chose on purpose not to have a death scene. We've seen them in a million movies and it's too much like cranking the tears out. I didn't want that scene.

I would be more frightened as a writer if people thought my movies were like science fiction.

I make movies I want to see.

Just in the past few years - since I've been making movies, which isn't a very long time - you now have a culture that is fascinated and informed about the box office in a way that sometimes filmmakers weren't even.

People have perhaps gotten to the point where for the most part movies are a just bit of escape.

I want to be like Tom Cruise from The Outsiders and go on and do amazing movies for a long time.

I certainly look at them very differently now, and enjoy Jackie Chan movies and movies like that.

Up until doing this movie, I hadn't really paid a huge amount of attention to those genres, but after finishing this movie, it really gave me a different sense of appreciation of the way the movies play out.

When I was a little boy I used to borrow my father's hat, and make a press card to stick in the hat band. That was the way reporters were always portrayed in the movies.