When I walk into a screening, I'm nervous in a different way than I am as an actor. But the response is ultimately I know how I feel about it and that's what matters to me the most.
This movie [Don Jon] played at Sundance and South by Southwest and Berlin. And it just played - well...by the time it played at Toronto recently, it was already done. But getting to watch it with a thousand people is hugely informative.
The thing that is incredibly helpful is that we screen the movies and we ask the audience if they like it or not and we ask a lot of questions and do testing on the movies. For comedies, at least, it's very helpful. If they're not laughing and they don't say that they loved it, then I have screwed up.
You can't show a four-hour movie in a theater, really.
I wanted it to be like a high quality, drive-in movie.
The first time I went to Cannes, Gus Van Sant was there in competition with 'Last Days.'
I don't always see my movies right away. And there are some I haven't seen at all. Sometimes that bothers the directors, so I'm obliged to see them.
I'll never get another first premiere again, especially at Sundance. I've just been trying to fully engage myself in everything that's going on, and I hope to see other movies here while I'm here! I really want to!
It was like a family reunion, watching the movie. It's always a good feeling when I can get a screening for my family.
'Crouching Tiger, Hidden Dragon' is not a direct-to-video, low-budget sequel: it's a big film. And it'd be fantastic to have the opportunity to see it on the IMAX screens at the same time, and IMAX has made arrangements with us for that to happen.
In 1998, I was screening 'Good Will Hunting' at Camp David. And I was saying, 'Nice to meet you, Mr. President. Nice to meet you, Mrs. Clinton.' Madeleine Albright, Sandy Berger, Senator Daschle. It was an extraordinary day.
I can't watch my movies at their premieres - I learned that lesson the hard way.
Corey feldman and I did sneak into the screening room one day during Lost Boys.
While more great films are being made every year, it is increasingly difficult to get indies into theaters or on TV.
Back home, I find small towns very peaceful. When my father and uncle were still in the film business, we had a tradition of travelling to the temple town of Srisailam to screen every film before its release. I still go there often.
I think any filmmaker will tell you when they wandered from theater to theater to watch their prints, it was disheartening to see the poor levels of light and the disrespect for films that existed in certain theater chains. It was always inconsistent.
'Dust Devil,' I've never really seen with an American audience, so I'm looking forward to that experience.
I get cassettes near Academy Award time of every movie that's made that thinks it has some kind of chance for a nomination - that's when I watch my movies.
I saw 'Birth' at the Sundance Film Festival with a thousand other strangers, and I couldn't believe that was me in the film. I didn't recognize myself.
I just invited close friends and family, the usual suspects whose opinion I value but who I know will enjoy the film [Before I Go To Sleep]. I don't know how difficult it is for them to suspend their disbelief because they obviously know me and what they're seeing is not me.
I can't wake up every day and not thank Sundance. They're a great beacon of light for any independent film. Just to have a film that you made shown on a screen for an audience in a theater is beyond me, so I owe them everything in the world.
Ninety percent of films are pretty mediocre, but they have a built-in audience and open on 3,000 screens.
Usually, when I'm at a festival with a movie that I'm in, I'm in and out in 24 hours.
It's a big part of what we do - we test our movies extensively. I'm always there myself. It's sometimes difficult to sit through, especially if it's a version of the movie that's not working particularly well.
I remember a time when I was younger, when if you had to see an actor, you had to go to the theatre and watch a film.
