A big part of filmmaking is gathering a group of people you can work with.

I'm a big fan of American vaudeville and Hollywood silent film-era slapstick and the music halls full of ridiculous, eccentric characters.

Most of my work has been independent movies outside the mainstream system.

I always felt there was a kind of humanistic impulse in my thinking about film as well as a real interest in its formal and aesthetic properties - just this idea that it can bring you into a very intimate encounter with people.

I was a bachelor for a long time, and I got into all these really lazy habits work-wise. I'd just work as long as I wanted into the night. There was no structure.

I don't think of myself as doing good works. It's not, 'Oh, I must give these poor people a voice.'