Every film that you make has to have a scene that is the heart that blood flows through in every other scene. That scene doesn't always have to be in the beginning of the film. But it can also be at the end, or in the middle, and that can sometimes make the film more effective.

I like all kinds of film.

The first thing I do when I go to people's houses is look at their television, turn it on.

Coming to Hollywood, you always hear the horror stories, but I had good people around me who maybe didn't understand what I was doing but always protected me.

I'm not the greatest filmmaker. There are a lot of better filmmakers than me.

Whenever I make a movie, I always try to figure out what kind of music it would be.

I always approach every film I make as if it was going to be the last. So if I'm going to go out, I'm going out with a bang.

I started making films purely based on what I would like to see.

When I was 20 years old, my uncle was an arthouse distributor, and he would take me to Cannes every year to work as a film scout.

We live in a time where it's very much in vogue, constant search for pure utopian equality, and which, on one level, is quite amusingly silly but also on another probably very important.

The most creative phase of a film is in shooting, because structure is the defining element of that phase.

There are wonderful artists who deal in the fashion world only, and you see by their creations that they are changing our understanding of sexuality and freedom and gender-bending.

I'm not a guy's guy. I always loved girl things. I loved dolls. I loved dressing up and much more.

The greatest artists were in a situation where they had to pay their bills. That's a very convenient way to get very creative very fast.

I like extremes.

Beauty is like a new class system. The world is so obsessed with beauty; it has been for the last 2,000 years. It's the one stock that's never gone down, the one stock that's never gone out of fashion.

America has no one to catch you when you fall. That makes you want to achieve. It is healthy for the soul. But all that is valued is success.

I know how terrifying L.A. can be, because I've been there as a failure. After 'Drive,' it was the most marvellous place in the universe.

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.

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

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

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.

I'm not a political filmmaker.

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.