New Zealand was kind of getting a reputation for making middle-of-the-road films that weren't really that unique. They were kind of New Zealand versions of overseas films, and for sure, having an Oscar nomination totally helped me get funding.
I don't just want to be associated with a few good 3D movies and the audience is saying all of the other ones are crap.
'The Road' was a movie that has a good reputation, even though it wasn't released very well, but that's a movie I'm very proud of.
The first film is very important, and one needs to choose the right kind of debut project. I also think the second film is equally important, as it needs to be a notch higher.
Obviously if you're Coppola going into 'Apocalypse Now' off the back of the two 'Godfathers,' you're in a much better position than coming off the back of something like 'Dust Devil,' which had scarcely been released, and was pretty much lying around in film cans in different places.
On the world stage, Australians are very good short filmmakers.
I think the film you hear about the most is 'The Exorcist.' When people come up to me and say, 'Oh, you scared me!' I was the good guy in that film!
If a film becomes successful, the actor is blamed for being commercial and not having a true love for movies. When we do serious films, we will be blamed for not planning our career properly. I believe that what one should do is to make good cinema and try to make it successful.
Once a film is selected at Cannes, the crossover becomes very easy, thanks to the prestige and dignity it gains at Cannes.
The lasting and ultimately most important reputation of a film is not based on reviews, but on what, if anything, people say about it over the years, and on how much affection for it they have.
What I think I'm perceived as in France is, like, I'm this leading man always doing strange movies because most of the movies I did, like 'Irreversible' or 'Brotherhood of the Wolf' and a bunch of others, and even in France, they always come out as a particular movie, not like the typical French kind of movies that people know most of the time.
I've never achieved spectacular success with a film. My reputation has grown slowly. I suppose you could say that I'm a successful filmmaker-in that a number of people speak well of me. But none of my films have received unanimously positive reviews, and none have done blockbuster business.
I would be happy to do 'Sarfarosh 2'. The script should be as good as the first one. I don't want to destroy the goodwill of the first one.
My mother says to me, when I'm making a new movie, she says, "Oh, is Steve Buscemi in it?" I'd say, "Yeah." And she, "Oh, then it's going to be a good one." I swear to God, she says that every time. And when I say Steve's not in it, she says, "Oh."
From the very beginning, all of my films have divided the critics. Some have thought them wonderful, and others have found very little good to say. But subsequent critical opinion has always resulted in a very remarkable shift to the favorable. In one instance, the same critic who originally rapped the film has several years later put it on an all-time best list. But of course, the lasting and ultimately most important reputation of a film is not based on reviews, but on what, if anything, people say about it over the years, and on how much affection for it they have.
