SAM MENDES

I think with Blair Witch and The Sixth Sense, people are much more open to something that is different.

The movies that influenced me were movies that told their stories through pictures more than words.

I wanted to keep exploring... I'm not about to choose a series of movies in which I can use the same bag of tricks and style that I used in the first film.

Kevin and Annette... I wanted them to do it together. They clearly wanted to work with each other.

Listen, you make a big movie, you're going into the Coliseum, and people are going to give you the thumbs up or the thumbs down. And that's part of the game. It's part of the fun as well.

I've made movies that cost less than one car chase.

I'm certainly getting a lot more mail... that's basically it.

I still can't quite believe it. Although there was something about the fact that it was a first-time writer, a first-time producer, and a first-time director all at the same time.

You think about taking audiences on a journey.

I want to inspire, and be inspired.

Thank God I don't live in Los Angeles. I think if you're there the whole time it just gets out of proportion and you lose touch completely with reality.

As a first-time director in America, I feel I've been very fortunate.

There's one thing better than having a great actor, and that's having a great actor who's never done this kind of role before and is hungry to do it. They're testing themselves every day. They want to get out of their trailer and get to work.

It's a risk casting anyone against type or what they're known to do. But there's one thing better than having a great actor, which is having a great actor who's never done what you're asking him to do. He's hungry to get out of the trailer every day and hungry to test himself.

There's good and bad in everybody. I wasn't looking for the good, or looking for the bad. This is a man who signed his pact with the devil 20 years ago, and he's learned to live with it. He's tried to protect his family from it.

Now I'm back home, living in London, running my theater. I just want to enjoy all that.

I feel like the American years were my apprenticeship for doing a Bond movie.

It took me a long time to film the plastic bag, and then I had to get the cut of the scene right. But if you find it as beautiful as the character does, then suddenly it becomes a different movie, and so did he as a character.

You're in the lap of the gods. If people go, they go, and if they don't.

You freeze with the number of opportunities given to you and just decide to do nothing at all.

For me, certain shots or scenes are keys in the movie.

The characters are trapped within the lifestyle. It's about what goes on before the movie starts.

I don't think good and evil are polarized.

Shooting action is very, very meticulous, it's increments, tiny little pieces.

I think movies are a director's medium in the end. Theater is the actor's medium. Theater is fast, and enjoyable, and truly rewarding. I believe in great live performance.