I would like to find a way to embrace what Led Zeppelin did, in filmmaking.

I think I've spent more time in front of a camera than off camera. That's just the way it is.

When I was eight, I would look at the cover of the 'Ghost Rider' comic book in my little home in Long Beach, California, and I couldn't get my head around how something that scary could also be good. To me it was my first philosophical awakening - 'How is this possible, this duality?'

If I could have been a marine biologist I would have, but I didn't have that kind of intelligence. Numbers were never my strong point.

I'm not a trained actor. I'm someone who is autodidactic and learned on my own.

I don't want to sit around by the pool luxuriating with a margarita. That's just not what I want to do.

It's amazing marrying someone who wants nothing to do with Hollywood.

I'm not an anarchist any more. I still love the Sex Pistols, but I don't want to be a punk rocker all the time, but I do want to carry on exploring new forms of acting.

One of my goals is to have a base near mainland China. I think Hong Kong would be a good match for me. I like being in Hong Kong.

I knew I wanted to be an actor when I was very young. I guess I was about 6 years old at the time, and I was fascinated by television. I started having waking fantasies where I was in a movie and there were crane shots of me during a scene.

I know there's been a lot that's been said about animated voice work, as though it's 'you can do this in your jeans and there's no camera and no pressure there. It's no big deal. It's easy.' The truth is, it's really a great test: how deep is your ability is to access your imagination?

I came out of independent film, that's my roots.

I think that if you go about making movies to win Oscars, you're really going about it the wrong way.

Often you hear stories about never working with children. I disagree because children still have that residual magical thinking. They haven't had their imagination knocked out of them by turning into adults and life experiences.

Shock is still fun. I won't ever shut the door on it.

I want to always find new ways of reinventing myself.

I think that art is an act of violence, and the more emotionally engaged you are in a piece of art, the more violent it feels.

Writing is fantasizing about what your film will be like. Shooting is reality. And the post-production is recovering the idea you had.

I think the Internet is the greatest invention since women.

I believe silence is the greatest sound of all.

To me, the darkest film ever made and the film, to me, that's the darkest picture in the human humanity's soul is 'Pretty Woman.'

'Valhalla Rising' is a fusion of my upbringing, basically: everything I grew up loving and wanted to make a film of.

I believe that the constant possibility of failure or possibility of decision-making feeds your creativity.

The 'Neon Demon' is very much designed to be like a YouTube movie. It's designed to be chopped up. You can cut it up into seven or eight pieces and they're, like, vignettes.

Filmmaking is not about what we see - it's a very misconceived notion; it's about what we don't see.

I think that every man has a 16-year-old girl inside of him.

The greater the darkness, the better the drama.

I'm dyslexic, which means I have trouble reading and writing. So images really speak to me.

I believe in free education, free healthcare. But I do not believe in equality.

My world is just one big chaos!

I always, as a firm rule, make my movies based on how inexpensively I can make them because that means the more freedom I'm going to have.

Oh, I love L.A. It's not so much about Hollywood. I love everything in L.A.

I moved to New York when I was eight years old, in 1978. I grew up in Manhattan. I couldn't speak any English, and I had dyslexia, so it took me many years before I could read.

For 'Drive,' we needed the songs to dictate emotions and really bring you into the mind of The Driver; he's a unique and complicated guy, so the music itself had to be unique and complicated.

I'm a huge admirer of Keanu. I think he's absolutely extraordinary.

My mother and stepfather were documentary filmmakers and, of course, had a very healthy Scandinavian mentality. When it came to cinema, my mother was very obsessed with the French New Wave. That was her generation.

It's hard to always challenge yourself, coming up with new ways to make your life difficult, so when you make something, it becomes more interesting.

As long as your movies don't lose money, you'll always be able to make them.

I base everything on my instinctual approach. There's something very satisfying in that creativity, and it's a bit like an infant drawing.

My films are like Christmas: you can't wait to open it.

I think you have to be so indulgent in creativity in that, if you're happy, it's successful. If it's then financially successful, which is different parameters, then you're also happy.

'Bronson' was like, 'I'll do a movie about my own life.' And it became like an experiment.

There will always be a theatrical experience because there will always be cinemas no matter what. It's like there will always be theaters to have stage plays in.

I find beauty very frightening because it's such an all consuming subject in our society.

The more we become civilized, the more we simultaneously understand our need to be virtuous and our need to understand our experiences on a subconscious level.

I'm not a political filmmaker.

For me, it's all about having the performers feel confident in their movements and surroundings. And then I'll figure out how to photograph it afterward.

When I was 12 or 13, I started going to the cinema myself.

I wanted to be famous. I guess I thought acting would make me famous.

I'm glamour. I'm vulgarity. I'm scandal. I'm gossip. I'm the future. I'm the counter culture. I'm commercial reality. I'm artistic singularity.