ANDREW DOMINIK

I read books all the time. I'm just half looking for something to do; I mostly just read for pleasure. Occasionally I stumble across something that could be a movie, but I don't put a book down just because I don't see a movie in it, either.

When men organize themselves into groups, and they make rules based on common or self-interest, it's always tangled and political.

Films that score very high with test audiences generally tend to not be so great. But, there's a lot of money involved in making movies, and it's a way for people to reassure themselves, who have spent money, and it's also a way to work out how to market a movie.

When you ask a bunch of people to see a film, and then invite them to comment on it and tell them it's a work-in-progress, they feel bound to offer an opinion.

Everybody is always trying to make the best movie they can. It's a process.

Actors look for characters. If they read a well-written character, and if they think the director's not an idiot, they're going to sign up and do some acting.

To me, regardless of who's in office, the government is strangled by business. And the government's priorities are dictated by business. I mean, why does America, even after healthcare reform, still not have free universal healthcare? I'm sure it has something to do with the insurance lobby.

There's been about 75 movies about Jesse James, and I've seen about four of them. He's usually portrayed as this plucky rebel who's got no choice but to turn to crime, because the railway's hassling his mother. But he wasn't like that.

In Australia, we point out a person's weaknesses as a way of saying 'I see you and I accept you'. If you do that with Americans, they instantly take offence.

Once you do something violent in a film, you don't have to do too much. You do it once and the feeling of violence just stays there, do you know what I'm saying?

I always feel that crime films are about capitalism because it is a genre where it is perfectly acceptable for all the characters to be motivated by the desire for money. In some ways, the crime film is the most honest American film because it portrays Americans as I experience a lot of them, in Hollywood, as being very concerned with money.

I'm not a very efficient filmmaker. There's a lot of guys, filmmakers like the Coen Brothers who shoot a whole movie and maybe don't use 12 setups. I'm in awe of people like that; I'm just not that guy.

America's moved so much of its production and manufacturing offshore, it's become a nation of middlemen.

I really believed Obama when he spoke in 2008, but I remember watching his victory speech after this last election and it was the same speech. Exactly the same speech. I felt like he didn't even believe it anymore. He seemed to be tired of saying the same thing.

I don't think human beings have changed in 2,000 years.

I like test screenings. I like to see a movie with an audience of strangers. I think it tells you a lot.

Actors have either got to play something that's close to them, or something that's the complete opposite.

Americans are not renowned for having a sense of irony.

Obviously, a power player in a criminal organization doesn't have to persuade anyone. He can just do what he wants.

I don't know whether crime is dictating business or business is dictating crime.

For me, the movie's always evolving as I'm doing it. I throw things in as we shoot, and I take things out as we go. I want to create a whole life and then select the pieces that best sort of describe it later, you know? So there's a lot of wastage when I make a film.

Sometimes you see a movie and you can really feel that it's an actor putting in a performance. Someone said 'cut' and they're back in their trailer having a coffee or getting their hair done.

A lot of writing's going down dead ends that don't go anywhere.

I actually don't like westerns much. I like good westerns, but it isn't my preferred genre. There are all kinds of westerns: acid westerns, '70s westerns, Nicholas Ray's neurotic westerns. The ones I tend to like are nutso westerns.

It seems like women don't want men to be men anymore. They want men to be women. But they really don't want what they say they want. It's very weird.