I don’t feel the need to direct. I tried to get other people to direct Dances, but they wouldn’t do it. They all thought it was too long. One director wanted to cut the Civil War sequence. Another thought the white woman was very cliched.
I want to live forever, and I know I won’t. I’m not afraid of dying. I’m only afraid of one thing: not being able to raise my kids.
I think religion is a funny thing because, when you see somebody who can really break it down, sometimes it feels foolish what you believe.
I haven’t tried to buffer myself. I like rolling the dice.
I try to please myself. I don’t try to anticipate what people want to see.
I’m a pretty convenient foil for a lot of people.
We’re at a point in history where everyone needs to pay attention to politics. Too much is at stake for us to be apathetic.
You have to pick the stories that you want to be involved with and the end game is you’d like to be a part of a hit. But I think your moral obligation is to follow your own heart.
It sounds vain, but I could probably make a difference for almost everyone I ever met if I chose to involve myself with them either professionally or personally.
I wait and take on projects that I think can work.
I don’t think I ever take huge risks, though I’m not scared of doing so.
I didn’t realize Toronto was so beautiful. Everywhere you go you see beautiful architecture.
When I make a film I’m away from home for two to three months. So I want my kids to look at my films one day and say, I love his movies, I love his choices-because he loved them.
I can’t say I really see much difference between my son and daughters except that my girls will occasionally make me a sandwich and my son won’t.
The kind of love that these young men have and the respect that they have for their fathers, I don’t see that as much in America as you see in the Latino community, and it’s really something to behold.
There’s real drama in performing live. You never know how it’s going to be.
I deal with pressure. I have a tendency to probably be at my best under pressure.
I don’t have a seller’s remorse about how I’ve lived.
I believe people who go into politics want to do the right thing. And then they hit a big wall of re-election and the pettiness of politics. In the end, politics gets in the way of the business of people.
I have seen soldiers panic at the first sight of battle, and a squire pulling arrows from his body to fight and save his dying horse. Nobility is not a birthright, but is defined by one’s actions.